BuCoVaWx

Snowing pretty steady now. Heavy graupel moved through a bit earlier. Nice to see some flakes flying around.

Here are two home videos I have uploaded to YouTube of the 1987 snowstorm. Sorry if the quality is poor, I am certainly no camera man! Ignore my crazy daughter squalling in the background lol. The people in the videos are my uncle, aunt and cousin. Oh, and their dog "Moose" lol. According to my grandmother they received 34 inches when it was all said and done. I figured some of you guys might enjoy some never before seen footage of a great storm.

2 hours ago, Daniel Boone said:

What is your YouTube channel ? 

I wasn't able to film it today, will definitely get it tomorrow. I'll get back to you on the channel. Haven't used it in years lol. 

7 hours ago, Carvers Gap said:

This is one which actually rivals 93' but gets a little less press.  This was my spring break in HS.  We couldn't leave the house for the entire break - snowed in.   Folks raised in E TN, E KY, and SW VA know to keep looking back over one shoulder.  Now, I am in not forecasting this, but LR ext modeling is showing cold worthy of this type of storm.  It can and does snow at lower elevations in many areas during March and sometimes April, though this is an extreme example.

This is a great article about the storm.....It includes synoptical set-ups and photos.  

https://www.weather.gov/jkl/198704_snowstorm

I have home video footage of this storm. I was only 6 months old, so I surely don't remember it. My uncle filmed a good bit of it. I may try to film a little onto my phone and upload on YouTube. Very interesting to see that kind of storm in April.

This guy has been hanging around my house the past few days. Maybe he's telling us winter isn't quite through yet. 

Thunder and lightning in Grundy this morning. Very loud, woke me up. As I am typing this, my power is fluctuating as well.

27 minutes ago, Daniel Boone said:

Didnt you get blasted in February 2015 like we did ? There was over 2 feet on the ground in Pennington gap and Big Stone gap at one time. Over 40 inches fell in 3 weeks !

Wow! That is a lot in 3 weeks. If I'm not mistaken (I very well could be), I think we ended up with around 9 inches with that storm. There have been quite a few times I have received a bit lower totals compared to areas just south and/or east. 

I received 6 inches from this past system. 5 inches from the first. I believe this is the most snow on the ground since 2014. This will definitely be a memorable week of winter weather for quite a while. So nice to see snow everywhere. It feels like such a rarity these days.

Picked up 4 inches since last night

I've had snow showing up on radar for a few hours, some look like heavier showers, but I see nothing out of my window? It was flurrying at the onset but nothing since. What would cause this? Sorry if this is an amateur question lol

.WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 7 PM THIS EVENING TO 10 AM
EST SATURDAY...

* WHAT...Heavy mixed precipitation expected. Total snow
accumulations of 3 to 5 inches and a trace of ice accumulation
possible.

* WHERE...Buchanan County.

* WHEN...From 7 PM this evening to 10 AM EST Saturday.

* IMPACTS...Plan on slippery road conditions. The hazardous
conditions could impact the morning or evening commute.

* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Any ice accumulations would be tonight into
Friday morning.

The roads are very rough on Rt. 460 in Grundy despite multiple crews staying on top of it.

Small flakes starting to fly up here in Grundy

1 hour ago, Carvers Gap said:

Advanced teleconnections.

Must be a running theme across the region! 

Just now, Hurricaneguy said:

I'm in Greeneville. I do not like seeing the cutoff right on our county. When it's been nearly two years since a decent snow that drives you crazy lol

I know the feeling. Seems like I'm always on the cutoff of the bigger systems. I'm just happy anyone on the forum is getting some winter action. Actually having something to track has been a lot of fun (and frustrating) lol. It's definitely better than chasing 60 and 70 degrees temperatures in the middle of winter.

7 minutes ago, ShawnEastTN said:

Quite possibly they were my first as well in that same timeframe, came over here in 2014.

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk
 

Those were also my first weather forums. Probably back in 07. That place could get a bit interesting at times, to say the least.

1 hour ago, Carvers Gap said:

Yes, we live in a place(greater TRI area) where strange stuff happens during snowstorms.  I remember when @BlunderStormcouldn't buy a flake of snow one winter due to an odd snow shadow there that was only prevalent that winter due to the angle of approach of many of the storms.  I have seen Johnson City crippled by snow, and only had 2-3" IMBY.  As I noted above, it seems TRI almost always has the lowest denominator total recorded - very suspicious.

I'm about 20-30 miles west of @BlunderStorm, but I remember as recently as 2018 (if I'm not mistaken) Abingdon received nearly a foot of snow, possibly more. We ended up with a cold rain. Very wild how things can differ in such short distances.

Coming down heavy now

Just had a decently heavy rain/snow shower kick up for about 10 minutes. The wind is really starting to pick up as well.

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE

National Weather Service Charleston WV

207 PM EST Sun Dec 17 2023

VAZ003-004-WVZ033-034-039-040-515>519-521-180315-

/O.NEW.KRLX.WW.Y.0020.231218T1800Z-231219T1500Z/

Dickenson-Buchanan-McDowell-Wyoming-Upshur-Barbour-

Northwest Raleigh-Southeast Raleigh-Northwest Fayette-

Southeast Fayette-Northwest Nicholas-Northwest Webster-

Including the cities of Clintwood, Grundy, Vansant, Welch, Gary,

War, Mullens, Oceana, Pineville, Buckhannon, Philippi, Belington,

Bradley, Prosperity, Sophia, Beckley, Oak Hill, Fayetteville,

Montgomery, Meadow Bridge, Summersville, Craigsville,

Birch River, Holly River State, Webster Springs, and Cowen

207 PM EST Sun Dec 17 2023

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 1 PM MONDAY TO 10 AM

EST TUESDAY...

* WHAT...Snow expected. Total snow accumulations of 2 to 5

  inches. Winds gusting as high as 35 mph.

* WHERE...Portions of southwest Virginia and northeast,

  northern, southeast and southern West Virginia.

* WHEN...From 1 PM Monday to 10 AM EST Tuesday.

* IMPACTS...Travel could be very difficult. The hazardous

  conditions could impact the morning or evening commute.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

Slow down

and use caution while traveling.

UK definitely saved my life on several occasions. Not only that but they were very kind, very professional, and they listened to my concerns and addressed them. The other hospitals, not so much. I know it wasn't only UK that saved me, The Good Lord and prayer was doing work from the beginning. I truly believe as crazy as it may sound, that God had put pancreatitis on me to send me back to the ER. I wasn't going to return because of the "sinus infection". I had already accepted that was the issue and was going to continue my antibiotics. The pancreatitis resolved that night when I got to Pikeville. I had never had any issues with it before or since. If I hadn't been in a hospital when everything took a turn for the worse, there's no way I would have survived. The doctors say that as well. Every Dr I've seen during this whole ordeal, which is a lot, say it truly is a miracle that I survived through everything. God certainly does have a plan for all of us. It's all in his hands.

Thank you Holston! I'm sorry your dad had to deal with that. Fungal infections come in all shapes and sizes. It sounds very similar to blasto. The medicine I'm taking is call Itraconazole or Sporanox. It has some not so pleasant side effects but it's much better than the alternative.

I'm very sorry to hear that you've been through all of that. As of now, the Drs are saying I should make a full recovery but it will take about a year in total. I have some scar tissue in my left lung, they believe it shouldn't cause further issues. With blastomycosis, it enters the body in the form of fungal spores, but when it actually starts to grow in the lungs, it is in the form of yeast. It is very slow growing, so sometimes symptoms won't show until months later. Unfortunately it is also very slow to heal and eradicate. I will be on an antifungal pill 6 times a day for a year.

Thank you guys very much! It's been a crazy ride for sure. There were a couple of positives from it. I got to skip a whole month of summer, closer to fall and winter! And I lost 90 lbs, which resolved my diabetes. I've gained about 40 lbs back from muscle and a better appetite. I don't recommend my signature weight loss program though lol

I've been meaning to make a post on this topic for awhile, but never got around to it. It will probably be a long read, just a warning lol. Back in late May I started getting what I felt like was a cold. I had a rattling feeling deep in my lungs when I would breathe in deep. I went to the local urgent care on a Monday. I asked for blood work or an X-ray. They thought it was just a sinus infection and wrote out antibiotics. I wasn't satisfied with that, so the next day I went to the ER. It was very busy and the doctor pretty much brushed it off. They too thought it was a sinus infection,no blood work or X-ray, even though I had asked a couple of times. On the next day which was Wednesday, I went to my regular Doctor. She was out for the day so I saw the nurse practitioner. Same story as before, sinus infection. They gave me a steroid shot and an antibiotic shot. So I just accepted that after seeing three different medical professionals, I would just take the antibiotics and everything would clear up.  

Thursday night I started getting severe pains in my upper and right side abdomen. I didn't think much about it. The next day the pain had subsided for the most part during the day. Later that day, the pains hit me even harder than before, so I decided to go back to the ER. This time they did an X-ray and blood work. The nurse came in and said the blood test had shown signs of pancreatitis. After waiting another hour or so the Dr finally came to talk to me. It was the same Dr from the days before. He apologized when he came in. He said you are a very sick young man. I had pancreatitis and pneumonia. They had also spotted a large mass on my upper left lung. He had told me that they needed to send me out to a better facility. They tried to transport me to Johnson City, but there were no beds available. I ended up going to Pikeville Medical Center.

By the time I am transported by ambulance it's around 2am. They start me on antibiotics for my pneumonia. By the next day the pancreatitis had cleared up. I didn't even have pain from it anymore. As a few days go by the pneumonia slowly starts getting worse. The Drs have me on broad spectrum antibiotics at this point. After being hospitalized for over a week, nothing had changed. Of course I start asking questions and ask if it could be a different form of pneumonia given the antibiotics aren't working. They say of course there could be a possibility but the chances are pretty rare, most of the time it's bacterial. A day after I ask these questions they decide to do a bronchoscopy. They do the procedure but will take a few days to get results. The night of the operation, I noticed it's getting harder for me to catch my breath. They crank the oxygen up as high as it goes in the hospital room. 

The next day they do an X-ray and the mass is growing. They start talking about the possibility of doing a biopsy. Things started spiraling downhill pretty fast after the X-ray. The Dr comes in and says they are going to move me to ICU, but won't do life support at first. No one had mentioned anything about things being to that severity so my family and I are all in shock and worried. We start asking questions trying to figure out why they were taking me to ICU. The Dr really didn't give much of an explanation. I definitely noticed my breathing was getting much worse. By the time they took me to ICU, I was on a very large amount of oxygen. Eventually putting me on a CPAP machine. That night I start running a fever. It was around 102 to 104. They weren't able to keep it as low as they wanted. The next day they put me on a ventilator and decided at this point it's best to put me in a medically induced coma on life support to take some of the pressure off of my lungs to heal. They put me to sleep. That was on June 6th. I wake up on July 4th, completely out of it. Had no idea where I was or what was going on. My mother and fiance were by my side, smiling, crying and hugging each other. I try to talk, but nothing is happening. My mother asks if I know where I am. I shook my head no. I was at UK hospital in Lexington KY. 

They had made the decision to fly me out to Lexington on June 9th. My fever was out of control, it was 107.5 when I arrived at UK. Before I left Pikeville they had found that the pneumonia was fungal. They were treating me for the wrong fungus. They had diagnosed me with Histoplasmosis. UK had determined that I had a fungal infection called Blastomycosis. Several days after arriving at UK, they put me on ECMO. The best way I can describe it is sort of like blood dialysis. It filters all of the blood to 100% oxygenation, giving the lungs a chance to rest and hopefully heal. ECMO is a last resort. The procedure itself has only 50% survival rate. I had went into A fib during ECMO, so I had to be laid prone for either 16 hours on stomach and 8 on back, or vice versa. My survival chance between ECMO and Blastomycosis was at 30%. I was on it for 2 weeks, and gradually started to heal. By the time I woke up, I couldn't move anything. I had Critical Illness myopathy. I was still on the ventilator and had a trach in as well. After weaning me off the hard medicines I started slowly realizing the severity of my situation. I stay in ICU until August 1st. Then I get moved 2 doors down which is out of ICU. 

Because of the ECMO, I had a fistula where the cannula was inserted in my right groin. I had surgery August 4th to correct the fistula and a pseudo aneurysm. The surgery site gets infected. I start running a fever again, so they do a washout on August 21st. After that, there is still signs of infection so they do a second washout on the 25th. 3 surgeries in 3 weeks! They put a wound vac in to help heal the site. They found the infection to be CRE. It's an infection that targets weaker immune systems in hospitals. The doctor informed me it is a very serious infection that can lead to heart problems, brain infections and meningitis. At this point I'm just ready to go home. They put me on a 6 week antibiotic. One of the strongest made. 3 times a day, each bag cost around $600. Very powerful stuff. Of course with it being so powerful, it has a slew of side effects and is very dangerous itself. 

The whole time I'm in UK, they work with me in physical therapy. It wasn't much at all but enough to get me a bit more independent. My insurance wouldn't accept me into any acute rehab facilities. Thankfully the wonderful people at UK set me up with a scholarship at Cardinal Hill rehab hospital in Lexington. I was there for a little over 2 weeks. I finally got to come home on October 13th. I'm doing physical and occupational therapy 3 times a week. I'm in a wheelchair for now, can walk short distances on a walker. I'm slowly regaining my strength, but still have a long road ahead. 

One thing I have learned from this experience is all of the small things I have taken for granted. In the snap of a finger everything can change.

The doctors think I contracted blastomycosis from black mold spores. I was renovating my bedroom and the wall below the air conditioner in my room was starting to rot. I had only discovered it a couple of weeks before I got sick. Blastomycosis affects 1 in 100,000 people and can get it from soil, rotting wood and trees. I had diabetes prior to contracting blastomycosis, so it made everything much worse. 

Thank you all for reading this. I just wanted to share my story. So if I don't get to share any snow photos this year, that's the reason. I still have windows, so if we get a good storm, I'll definitely share those!