Stormlander

I’m in Riverdale and logged 0.06” in 14 minutes. It feels a little bit personal, have to say.

Speaking as a past and current employee at other universities around town, and veteran of midwestern tornadoes and being an RA through a couple EF3s, here’s a couple things she can do: - Does the building have a designated floor marshal or safety officer on staff, and does she know how to contact them? They’ll have exact info on where the shelters are and how to access them. I don’t know how AU’s program works, but Georgetown and UMD have had them in the buildings I’ve worked in to support evacuations and corralling personnel to safe locations. - If she can’t contact a floor marshal or one doesn’t exist, AU’s police department might have advice if she emails them. - If she’s got to ensure production safety in a weather event, I’m pulling from documentation that just got circulated to us at Maryland: get below ground, somewhere interior to the building, and stay away from walls and windows, doors with glass, etc. Ideally, the room shouldn’t have a lot of unsecured *stuff* in it like a media production room would, or electrical cables. If anyone has bike helmets or the like, put them on. Flash flooding in buildings can be a risk (this happened to me in grad school, and it happened at one of UMD’s libraries too), and that’s an evacuate ASAP situation. I hope that helps, and that it’s all just precautionary!

Hah, I live in that part of Riverdale Park and I am just getting into birding (usually take my bicycle and binoculars out on the weekend). I've seen this guy, or his friends and family, over by the Bladensburg water park once or twice, if anyone needs some hot tips.

My first “snowstorm” after moving to this area was March 6, 2013, so I learned pretty early to hold lightly to any snow predictions for the region, particularly for big events. I know this is the panic room and not a space for positivity, but my main takeaway is that the ingredients can still come together for a major east coast snow event at (and below) our latitude at all, which has seemed very much in doubt for the last 5ish years. I feel more confident that it’ll be our turn again, even if this isn’t our season.

My mom’s from Fargo and likes to tell this story about going out to start her car while on a dinner date in college, and a guy attempted to carjack her. He couldn’t get the car going and kept stalling out, so she calmly knocked on the window and said, “Fella, I take it you aren’t from around here?” And she went on, “the way I see it, two things can happen. We can go to the pay phone and you can call a cab and leave, or, you can keep this up and I can call the police. Which one?” Apparently the guy was so embarrassed he took the cab.

Absolutely snow-globe perfect big flakes at a fast clip in Riverdale right now. Haven't gone out to measure yet (finishing coffee, meetings, and muffins by 10), but I'm optimistic on this one.

I had to pick up one of my bikes from the shop and rode about 6ish miles home this morning—definitely invigorating out there. Rode over a handful of expected slick spots on the bridges and wooden sections of bike trails, but nothing really hazardous. Currently 31°, low of 27.9°.

I grew up in southwest MO and yeah, I think the biggest snow I experienced as a kid was probably 9” or so, I want to say around 1993. It’s the only time I remember us really having enough snow to sled on, and it warmed up pretty quickly afterwards. My friends up in the Columbia area are absolutely losing their minds right now and I’m almost as jazzed for them as I am for us. The ice storms there are just the worst, though. 0 stars, do not recommend.

OK I don’t comment a ton (just a lurker for years), but my first direct hit major tornado did just this: it was an F4 on Black Friday in Springfield, MO and we got lucky but lost one of our exterior walls and had a large pine tree down on the car, and I vividly remember snow in our living room right afterwards - absolutely surreal experience.

Been parked at 67° in Riverdale for most of the afternoon.

A little late to this thread, but behold “Testsnowdo” on the mall at the University of Maryland last week.

Listen, as a former GU employee (and really long time lurker on this board), I actually think I know what happened over there. The Eye of Sauron they installed at Lauinger Library creates its own microclimate, you see, and it’s a well-documented issue. (not my image but you’d be surprised how often I use this)

27/24 in Riverdale Park, 2.5” of the pleasantly fluffy stuff so far. Perfect weather for walking/chili/stouts/spiked hot chocolate, in about that order.

I actually registered after lurking for close to a decade, just to answer this. My most memorable weather event would be the severe thunderstorm and microburst in College Park on July 12th. I was about two miles south of it, but I work at UMD and rode my bike around to check out all the damage after power was restored at campus. I had colleagues who lost power at home for days in CP and Olney. In my area, I’d say that’s the most significant storm damage I’ve seen since the derecho. However, the other thing I remember about that event was the intensity of the sunset afterwards—simultaneous lightning, orange and red skies, high arc rainbows—just surreal.