Home | Blog Index | Blog Archives | Christianity & Faith Essays | Storm Chasing Essays

Wednesday, January 2, 2008 - 11:02AM

New Year's Snowstorm Update

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

Charleston has an inch or so on the ground so far this morning, and it is COLD. At 16 degrees F with 20mph winds, this was the first time that I began to feel discomfort from being outside for several hours at a time - mainly in my feet. I've developed a good tolerance for cold in recent years, so that's a little unusual for me. The upslope action in Charleston kicked in around daybreak and is still going strong. Like all snowstorm coverage work, it's been an exhausting one as I'm approaching 24 hours without sleep. Surprisingly, the Fort Hill Bridge has been quiet so far today (during the first four hours of the heavier snowfall), but the day is long from over. There is no way that I can cover every minute at that bridge for the entire time of a prolonged storm like this though - and there are plenty of other subjects that I need to get some shots of. I'm back in the office now to work on the first round of video, and probably will call it a day even though the upslope snow will be in full swing through the rest of the afternoon. There is still a lot happening out there now, and the plows are having trouble keeping the roads clear. I'd love to go back out - but you have to take a break at some point.

I encoded a quick Windows Media video from some of this morning's work, which can be viewed at this link (the first file in my 2008 folder, by the way). I just started that video file's upload, so if you're looking at this before 11:30AM it's probably not finished yet. (I didn't feel like waiting for it to tranfer entirely before making this post.) I'll have some more photos posted later this evening after I get a few hours of sleep.

Meawhile you can watch the StormCam to get a pretty good view of what we have so far (this is a live image):