Due to heavy snow showers, the roads here in Centre County are a LOT
worse than they look. I was on my way to work this morning when an SUV
in front of me started fishtailing big-time and took a good 10 seconds
to recover, narrowly missing a bridge abutment. When I thought to
myself
"Gee, why am I not sliding" I felt the back of the car start to go.
Fortunately
I had slowed down considerably and, realizing that the ice was where the
previous
tire tracks were, shifted over onto the snow.
I took for granted that it would not be slick this morning because they
keep so much salt on the roads here, and it was only around 32 degrees.
AND the snow, while a heavy squall, had applied only a dusting to the
roads.
My (fortunately non-fatal) mistakes were as follows:
#1. This was the first snow of the day so evaporative cooling sent the
temp down
two degrees. (see http://www.weathermatrix.net/wxstation/TWI-WRL/obs/ )
#2. It's always 5 degrees colder on the other side of town (I often
forget that)
#3. The snow came down FAST and HARD. These snow showers are initiated
by the cold
front and are not just the typical light lake-effect snow we get here in
Central PA.
#4. Because it was early, there wasn't as much traffic; repeated travel
over the
same tire tracks wasn't melting the ice.
#5. Last week was very warm and windy; no salt was applied to the roads
and a lot of
it literally blew off the roads.
So what happened was the previous traffic melted the snow and with
temperatures in the
mid-20s and no ice treatment, it refroze in the tire tracks. I had
tested the brakes
when the snow first started falling, but since I was the first traffic,
the tires
gripped the road through the snow.
--
================================================================
Jesse Ferrell - Meteorologist/Web Dev. - jesse{at}weathermatrix.net
WeatherMatrix |||| http://www.weathermatrix.net/ |||| ICQ 136832
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