Local
Area officials anxiously await impact of today’s icy weather
By: Leah Fabel
Examiner Staff Writer
January 28, 2009
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| A couple walks along the reflecting pool Tuesday in Washington. D.C.-area residents can expect icy conditions this morning, with rain in the afternoon. (Andrew Harnik/Examiner) |
“It’s very difficult to predict,” said Esther Bowring, a spokeswoman for Montgomery County. “We plan for the worst and hope for the best.”
Bowring and her D.C.-area colleagues kept a close eye on National Weather Service predictions Tuesday of 1 to 2 inches of snow and sleet overnight topped by a layer of ice this morning, as many schoolchildren kept their fingers crossed. Final decisions about today’s closings will be made in the pre-dawn hours by superintendents and county executives.
The snowfall is the first that many in the region have seen in almost two years, especially residents of D.C. proper. The heaviest patches of accumulation arrived further south, near Fredericksburg, Va., according to the National Weather Service.
Greg Schoor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said there was no easy explanation for the region’s recent paucity of snow. “We can’t point to any one reason,” he said.
Average annual snowfall for the past 30 years has been about 15 inches, according to the National Weather Service.
Suburban school systems closed early or altogether Tuesday morning, while D.C. Public Schools was the only district in the region to remain fully open. County government offices stayed open, but postponed public meetings scheduled for Tuesday evening.
The timing of the storm is especially good in districts like Montgomery and Fairfax where the second semester is just beginning, but equally bad for places like Prince George’s, where this is final exam week.
“Having just finished a marking period, they’re starting fresh,” said Montgomery spokesman Steve Simon, adding that new classes will begin whenever students return to school.
In Prince George’s, school officials eked out as many minutes as safety would allow, they said, opting to close two hours early and cancel after-school activities.
Officials from both districts said that despite sharing a border, both are large enough to have very different weather patterns on any given day, explaining why one may close while the other may let the school bells ring.
Students in Fairfax and Prince William counties already had Monday and Tuesday off to allow teachers time to finish first-semester grading and prepare for second-semester classes.
After the congestion has cleared, officials are at ease and students are back in school, the National Weather Service’s Schoor said Tuesday and today will likely prove fairly minor.
“It’s winter — it’s snowing,” he said.
Examiner Staff Writer William C. Flook contributed to this story.
DRIVING TIPS
• Stay home. Don’t go out unless you really have to — then avoid driving if possible. Even if you can drive well in the snow, not everyone else can.
• Accelerate and decelerate slowly. Applying the gas slowly to accelerate is the best method for retaining traction and avoiding skids.
• Take time to slow down for stoplights.
• Drive slowly. Everything takes longer on snow-covered roads.
• Increase following distance behind other vehicles. The normal following distance of two to three seconds on dry pavement should be increased to eight to 10 seconds.
• Know your brakes. Whether or not you have antilock brakes, the best way to stop is threshold breaking. Keep the heel of your foot on the floor and use the ball of your foot to apply firm, steady pressure on the brake pedal.
• Don’t stop if you can avoid it. If you can slow down enough to keep rolling until the light changes, do it.
• Don’t power up hills — or try to stop on one. Applying extra gas on snow-covered roads just starts your wheels spinning. As you reach the crest of the hill, reduce your speed and proceed down hill as slowly as possible. But there’s nothing worse than trying to get moving up a hill on an icy road.
Source: AAA Mid-Atlantic
• Accelerate and decelerate slowly. Applying the gas slowly to accelerate is the best method for retaining traction and avoiding skids.
• Take time to slow down for stoplights.
• Drive slowly. Everything takes longer on snow-covered roads.
• Increase following distance behind other vehicles. The normal following distance of two to three seconds on dry pavement should be increased to eight to 10 seconds.
• Know your brakes. Whether or not you have antilock brakes, the best way to stop is threshold breaking. Keep the heel of your foot on the floor and use the ball of your foot to apply firm, steady pressure on the brake pedal.
• Don’t stop if you can avoid it. If you can slow down enough to keep rolling until the light changes, do it.
• Don’t power up hills — or try to stop on one. Applying extra gas on snow-covered roads just starts your wheels spinning. As you reach the crest of the hill, reduce your speed and proceed down hill as slowly as possible. But there’s nothing worse than trying to get moving up a hill on an icy road.
Source: AAA Mid-Atlantic
