How did Native Americans stay warm and survive the winters? Especially those living in the Northeast and Midwest facing bitter winters. What was housing, clothing, and food preservation like?
There’s an old canard from back in the day that goes “Indian build small fire, stay close, stay warm, White man build big fire, stay warm gathering wood, feeding fire all night.” Indians were more attuned to their environment than the later arriving groups because they were raised from childhood in the areas where they live. They were taught from an early age to live off the land, notice what was going on around them and to construct sufficient housing and make preparations necessary for winter in their area. They weren’t locked into a design that worked well in a country that was now far away and having food stored to prepare for their winter.Each tribe prepared for their winter, knowing their condition and having a warning from nature around them as to the harshness probably ahead of them that year. They had been on the land here for a long time and understood what they faced. They did this without the help of the US Weather service and the Old Farmers Almanac and make no bones about it, when they were wrong, people died, Sometimes the old sacrificed themselves to save the young. What they did was as natural to them as putting on a heavier coat would be to us.Thanks Allen, for the A2A.
How bad is the Northeast Snowstorm 2017 relative to normal annual, nor'easters?
Pretty bad.Most northeastern old folks living in upstate for last 40 years would be telling; like they always do, ‘Naah! I’ve seen worse…’. But, last time it was this worse was 10 years ago in 2007.(Image: There’s supposed to be a road here, Syracuse, NY, 3/14/2017)New York City was expected to have 20 inches of snow, which didn’t happen but if it did, that would have been biggest snowstorm since 1888. So, to the old folks, they couldn't have seen worse.However, a lot of upstate New York cities had 30 inches (2.5 ft)of snow in 24 hours. And it’s going to get worse in the upcoming 24 hours. State of Emergency has been declared in New York.Wegmans, Tops, Price Chopper, Price Rite, etc. all upstate major stores closed today. No bars were open. Restaurants are closed. Papa John’s is delivering pizza though, but delivery time is between 120–180 minutes. Syracuse University, Cornell University and others declared holidays. Schools and Colleges shut down for 2 days.Wegmans closing Syracuse area stores Tuesday due to winter storm(Image Courtesy: Miguel Marquez on Twitter)I got an alert on the phone this morning alerting that ‘Admin staff is off, only Essential Staff is required to report’. I am working right now, so I asked my boss, ‘Hey Boss! I am a usual piece of a trash can on the usual days, but I am ‘essential’ in the snowstorm? May be I can put that in my LinkedIn.’(Image: CNN (TV network) )Binghamton Airport had 28.8 inches of snow. More than 8800 flights in upstate are cancelled today. Last time when it was this bad, 400 people died. No official figure for this year though.(Image: Slocum Hall, Syracuse University, NY, 3/14/2017)Surprisingly, all the buses were working. 30–45 minutes later than the schedule but Centro Bus did work. Greyhound stopped all the services for 2 days though. I saw 3 people in total today outside in the snow. Everybody is staying inside, and having their wooden logs prepared in case of lights cut-off.On an average, this is definitely worse than Thanksgiving Storm of 2016; and pretty bad overall in last 10 years according to weather-data.Sources:https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/...Nor'easter moving north as blizzard warning remains in some areasThis is what the Northeast snowstorm looks likeSyracuse City School District closes for second snow day Wednesday
How was the January 2016 East Coast snowstorm predicted so many days in advance?
In general, major storms on the East Coast are highly predicable because of the way how the storms form in the Atlantic. Because of the predictability, it's pretty common to get hurricane and blizzard warnings a full week in advance.This is a map of the last 150 years of storms that have hit the East Coast. You can build your own maps using the National Oceanica and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) tools.[1] The paths are notable because it all follow a very distinct clockwise pattern that starts from the Caribbean and end up either in Texas or New England.[2] Here is the path of all of the snow storms in 2014-15[3] As every East Coast elementary child has learned, we get Hurricanes because of the ocean currents of the Atlantic Ocean. The warm Gulf Stream from the equator go through the Gulf of Mexico and up the East Coast. This is why the water in New Jersey is so much warmer than the cold Arctic waters that go into Southern California. However the consequence of having such nice beach conditions is that the warm water from the south crashes into the cold air of the north causing Hurricanes!Ocean Currents of the AtlanticBecause of the huge economic and safety impact of having dozens of hurricanes, tropical storms, and blizzards for 200 years, we East Coasters have grown to care a lot about the need to predict the occurrence and direction of these storms.As an example, here was the path of 2012 Hurricane Sandy. While the location of Sandy's landfall was uncertain, meteorologists were about to predict the intensity and direction of the hurricane a solid week before the storm on October 22. One personal experience with Sandy was that the 2012 USA Ultimate Club championships were held in Sarasota, FL from Oct 25-28 and you can see the impact of the winds from a storm hundreds of miles away. Sandy won't hit New Jersey and NYC until October 29.Predicted Path of Hurricane Sandy 4 days before Landfall. A notable moment when the predictions were off was with Hurricane Katrina. Katrina made landfall at Florida early in its lifecycle before being pushed West on August 25 where it intensified in the Gulf. Hurricane Katrina: The Day the Forecast Shifted Original Katrina forecast at 5PM August 26 Katrina prediction at 11PM August 26 when "New Orleans is now in the cone". Footnotes[1] Hurricanes[2] Coastal Change Hazards: Hurricanes and Extreme Storms[3] Winter Weather 2014-2015 Recap
Should Atlanta really grind to a halt over two inches of snow?
The problem is twofold: traffic and ice. (No one can drive on ice.)The questioner apparently doesn’t know how bad Atlanta traffic is on a “good” day: we often rank number one in the country for horrible commutes — so it doesn’t take much to snarl it to monumental levels. Check out this Atlanta traffic map any weekday between 7–10 a.m. or 4–7 p.m. ET: Atlanta Traffic and Road Conditions. We are nothing if not a sprawling, car-dependent city.When it snows or sleets in the southern US, the day tends to warm up enough to partly melt it, then it quickly refreezes into solid ice in the evening. Or, the precipitation will start as rain, which freezes on the roads before the snow falls.As people drive, tires and the sun melt enough snow so it refreezes into ice even when the temperature stays around 30 or 31 degrees. Black ice is real and ubiquitous. Everyone knows this, so we all tend to flee our workplaces as soon as it becomes clear we may get trapped 30 miles from home.That said, even when it’s just snow, we don’t have snow tires, tire chains, snow shovels, or snowplows. People are not practiced at driving on it, and even if they are, a few patches of ice will yield wreck after glorious wreck.Add to that, most surface streets are hilly and curvy with shade trees that prevent the sun drying out the road when the snow melts. More sheets of ice!As an aside, most people don’t stock “ice melt” in the garage for their driveways and roads. Because we can go for years without significant snow, buying and maintaining all that stuff is costly for such a rare event. Even so, the City of Atlanta and some neighboring counties do have brine trucks that they break out for these events. That doesn’t fix the neighborhood streets or the inclination to get home asap, but it does help keep the freeways and major arteries from becoming full disaster areas.
Why doesn't it snow much in Seattle, despite being pretty far north?
The easy answer is: you need cold air + precipitation to get snow, and it's not typical to get both at the same time around the Puget Sound. If you want more than that, it's complicated. The weather here is affected by our geography, wind/air currents, and ocean currents.I'm not a meteorologist, not even on an amateur level, but I've been watching nightly forecasts for over 20 years. This has provided such information as: The Pineapple Express is warm winds coming directly from the vicinity of the Hawaiian islands, the Arctic Express is frigid cold air coming down from Alaska and/or Canada, and if they magically collide, we can get a spectacular blizzard. But it never seems to happen. One always seems to dominate the other, pushing the other around us. Hence, freezing temps with no precipitation or lots of rain with middling temperatures.Then there is the Puget Sound Convergence Zone: wind coming inland from the Pacific Ocean hits the Olympic Mountain Range, and splits in 2 to flow around the mountains. A little farther inland, the two flows hit the Cascade Mountain Range, which diverts them back into each other. All sorts of neat things happen then, usually involving wind and wet, but specifics seem to be incredibly difficult to forecast properly. One of the hallmarks of the event is different weather features within the zone, just outside of the zone, and farther away from the zone. It's rare to get snow in the PNW, rarer to get it in the city limits of Seattle, but really quite rare to get it all over the PNW and Seattle at the same time.Here's a great place to learn more:http://www.komonews.com/weather/...
Why doesn't California ever get hit with Hurricanes?
It can happen, but never has. There are two reasons why hurricanes do not strike California: sea surface temperatures, and the usual upper level steering winds in the eastern Pacific, with sea surface temperature being the most important. Tropical cyclones usually require very warm water to depth, generally above 26.5 C (80 F) extending to a depth of 50 M (~150 feet).[1] The waters off California are cold even in summer. They rarely rise above 24 C (75 F) in near-shore southern California,[2] and usually don't get above 17 C (63 F) along most of the rest of the coast and outer coastal waters, although El Niño events may warm the waters somewhat. This is due primarily to the extensive upwelling of colder sub-surface waters caused by the prevailing northwesterly winds acting through the Ekman Effect. The winds drive surface water to the right of the wind flow, that is offshore, which draws water up from below to replace it. The upwelling further cools the already cool California Current which runs north to south along coastal California and even much of coastal Baja California. This is the same mechanism which produces coastal California's characteristic fog. The second reason is the general path of tropical cyclones in the eastern Pacific. They generally move north-westward or westward due to steering by the prevailing upper level winds, which takes them far out to sea and away from land. This makes eastern Pacific landfalls improbable north of about central Baja California. In those instances when upper level steering winds do allow a more northerly path, much cooler sea surface temperatures quickly dampen the convection required to sustain strong tropical winds, although torrential rainfall can still occur.