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Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - 1:37PM CST

Some updates on the road icing subject

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

I know most readers come to this site to see storm chasing material, so I don't cross-post updates from icyroadsafety.com very often. However, I have a few items of interest to share here since a.) road icing is a valid form of dangerous weather that, as a storm chaser, I've devoted a lot of time to, b.) we're in the middle of winter in the US, and c.) and it has been quite a while that I posted about it here. I have been devoting more time to this subject not because I have a deep 'passion' for winter weather, but because I've become interested in doing something that actually has a chance at making a difference in the world. I feel that efforts toward road icing have the better potential to that end, as opposed to similar efforts with traditional severe weather (tornadoes, lightning, etc) which seem pretty well covered already.

First off, of recent note is a major high-impact icing event due to light snow that occured in the eastern Midwest/Appalachians region of the US on Monday (January 2). The number of accidents and multi-vehicle pileups reported with this event is as high as any that I've seen in the years I've been following this subject. I'm in the process of doing some information collection for a case study, but in the meantime here is some preliminary notes on the event:

LINK: Monday, January 2, 2012 road icing outbreak

Also, here are a couple other recent articles posted on the site:

LINK: No vehicle can safely go highway speeds on icy roads
LINK: Another case for "Road Ice Warnings": December 8-9, 2011 light snow event

Lastly, I have been experimenting with Youtube's HD video capabilities, with caution and heavy watermarking of course. I posted a full 1080i version of my icy road footage preview compilation here. To view this in full HD, select the "1080i" resolution option and then hit the "full screen" button:

HD VIDEO: HD Icy Road Footage - Accidents, Crashes, Spinouts and Slides - 1080i stock footage

I may begin using Youtube more in the coming season for HD video if it looks like this will be a safe option. As time permits, I'll probably render out and post some older clips in full HD in the coming weeks.