Originally Posted by blaze (Post 4363840)

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!:(

Originally Posted by blaze (Post 4364440)

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

Originally Posted by snowbunny (Post 4364757)

How do cat's eyes differ from the usual reflectors, which can reflect amber, red, or white?

( I bet Rushman knows )

Originally Posted by Jerseygirl (Post 4364461)

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 :zzz: :zzz: :zzz:

Originally Posted by Rushman (Post 4364728)

On your way to fort Drum huh? You were about 1.5 hours from my place and what you experienced was "Lake effect snow". Thats a regular occurance up here...(Bloody Syracuse lightweights :rolleyes:)...today you really were in "Upstate New York" glad you made it safe and sound though.

Originally Posted by blaze (Post 4364806)

Yep, made it within 5 miles of the place too when we had to turn around.
Lake effect snow is an absolute bitch down in Syracuse, that's quadrupled when you get up near a lake as big as Ontario!:blink: You're absolutely right though, that is the worst snow storm I've ever seen, Syracuse doesn't compare. They had a Syracuse news reporter up there all afternoon and when she did her evening broadcast she was stunned by the fact that people were still going to restaurants for dinner instead of staying home.:huh:

Originally Posted by Rushman (Post 4364830)

That sort of snowfall is a way of life up here. 2 years ago I went to bed at 11.30pm with about an inch of snow on the back deck and at 8.30am there was 4.5 feet of snow up against the french windows.

I went back to bed for a week.

Originally Posted by BigDavyG (Post 4364872)

You went back to bed for a week????

Originally Posted by Rushman (Post 4364876)

Sorry..typo...should've been "I went back to bed for a wank".

Originally Posted by Rushman (Post 4364728)

On your way to fort Drum huh? You were about 1.5 hours from my place and what you experienced was "Lake effect snow". Thats a regular occurance up here...(Bloody Syracuse lightweights :rolleyes:)...today you really were in "Upstate New York" glad you made it safe and sound though.

Originally Posted by Jerseygirl (Post 4365833)

Blaze I believe your in for more snow today. :frown:

Originally Posted by blaze (Post 4366222)

Thanks for that!:blink: :p

Originally Posted by Jerseygirl (Post 4366273)

I've just been out to mail mailbox and it's absolutely freeeeeeezing. The temperature is just below zero....the wind chill is bringing it down to -20F...it's brutal. :eek:

Originally Posted by DollyLlama (Post 4366282)

Thermal underwear can be useful ;)