Well, if you have never experienced driving in a white out I strongly suggest that you avoid it at all costs!

My husband and I headed up north today to the military base up in Watertown, NY for our monthly trip. The weather in Syracuse was mild and sunny. No recent snow so the roads were clear, all in all a pretty nice day.

We headed out around 10:00am, I was driving, and again, the roads were clear for most of the way. As we approached Watertown itself all of a sudden (and I mean that literally!) this large amount of snow started falling making visibility pretty difficult. Within 5 minutes enough snow had fallen to make the roads quite slippery (bearing in mind we are on a major highway).

I pulled of the road at the next exit to get something to eat, we were stopped for about 1/2 hr at the most. There was snow on the roads and visibility was pretty poor but you could still drive without too much of a problem. I turned onto the on ramp for the highway, got halfway down it and a complete white out occurred! I couldn't see beyond my bumper in front or behind the car! I put my hazard lights on and pulled over a little to stop as I wasn't about to pull onto the highway in front of other traffic without being able to see. My hubby said not to stop as I could get hit from behind so I had no choice but to keep moving forward with zero visibility.

When I got closer to the highway itself I saw that there was a convoy of cars moving at about 10mph. I merged slowly, unfortunately I ended up being the lead car so I had no taillights to help guide me (not that I could have seen them anyway!). I was going to get off at the first exit I came across but you couldn't see the road let alone any exits, all the signs had been completely buried in snow too. Every few yards or so you could just make out the tailights of cars that had run off the road and gone down embankments or into ditches.

We decided to try and hug the guard rail in the hopes it would guide us down an exit road, thank god eventually it did. We pulled into a Mobil station and tried to clear some of the snow off the car but no sooner had you cleared it but it was right back again. All we wanted to do at this point was get home but someone in the Mobil said that they had closed the highway, our only other option was a road that led parallel to it. We were then told by the same person that road would be a no no as it led you right into the snow belt ("you mean to tell me it gets worse than this!!!)

Thankfully they had closed the highway from the next exit up heading north so we were able to get back on and the visibility was a lot clearer. Everyone was driving with their hazard lights on at about 20 mph. Again, there were cars strewn all over the place.
The moral of the story is that we made it back to sunny Syracuse in one piece which I never thought would happen.
And for anyone who's wondering why we attempted to get home in those conditions, well, we had no choice. We couldn't get to our destination, the storm was supposed to get ten times worse so had we stopped still we would have been stuck for god knows how long and there was no where to stay in the immediate area.

What a day!

OMG glad you all made it back safely

Yikes - glad you made it back safely!!

Thanks both, me too!

Glad to hear you got back safe and sound

Thank you!

white outs are scary; which reminds me of a local story which occured a couple of weeks ago or so. 2 highschool kids were in a similar thing, a bit of a white out but not as severe as that... they had to pull over to change a tire. They were unloading the spare when they were struck from behind; pinned between both vehicles and both boys lost their legs.

Oh god that's horrible!

I'm was just watching the local news and it's saying that 5 feet of snow is expected in that area by tomorrow morning. There have been tons of accidents and they did eventually close highway 81. They had a news reporter up there and during the 3 minute news report she ended up with about 1 inch of accumulated snow on top of her hat!
Strange thing is that you expect it to be colder and have more snow accumulation in that area because it's very close to Lake Ontario but they hadn't said anything about this much snow on any weather forecasts that I had seen.

Glad you're ok chickie... stay in now, and remember, if you're to get some of that weather again, walk down the dark alley, not get in the car to go to the local shop...even if you have to go up and down a few times to get all the bits you need. Stay safe and warm. x

Glad you all got home safely Blaze. We've just heard about the weather up there..we are passing through on Thursday.

I had a journey like that once in the UK on the M56...heavy snow and freezing fog. Couldn't see the cat's eyes, barrier, lane markings....nothing...it was terrifying.

Yes Ma'am!

I know. Cat's eyes would have been useless today too. Makes you wonder why the US doesn't have anything like that though.

I don't know what the weather is supposed to be like on Thursday but drive safely.

Thank you. Hubby will be driving...I'll be sleeping no doubt. A tornado could pick the car up and throw it down and I'd still be

That sounds so scary! Glad you made it home okay. This weather isn't much fun at the moment - and we don't even have the snow, just the Freeeeeeeeeeeeezing cold [need a brrrrrr icon!]