Curse you, weather people

Tonight I had to drive home in some of the worst weather conditions that I have ever faced.  Fortunately it was President's day, so there were already fewer drivers on the road than a normal day.  Had that not been the case, I may have never made it home.  As it was, it still took me over two hours to get home.

Visibility was total crap - it was a white out.  Traffic was virtually at a standstill which meant that plows and salt trucks couldn't get through.  It also meant that there wasn't enough friction being caused by the heat and movement of tires to actually cause any of the snow to melt.   When I finally made it 279, there were a number of cars in the left hand lane just stuck - spinning their tires on what was basically ice.  I wanted to help, but I was also so afraid of not being able to get started again myself, so there was no way that I was going to stop. 

Once I got off of the highway, I couldn't really tell where the lane markers were.  At a traffic light located in the middle of a small hill I almost couldn't get started when the light turned green, and I have all-wheel drive. 

On my road I was behind an older car who clearly had a seasoned, confident driver behind the wheel, and he was moving along quite nicely.  I kept my distance and was cautious for anything that might derail him.  Still I could barely see where I was going.  As you approach my driveway, you are about half way a fairly significant hill.  It was here that the car in front of me starting spinning out.  He was all over both of the lanes but was still maintain speed and fortunately there wasn't any traffic coming.  I had to slow down to allow proper room between myself and him and was once again afraid that I wouldn't be able to get started again.  Finally he was passed my driveway.  Initially I had planned to go further up the hill to the development to turn around to get some speed to get up my driveway but I couldn't take the risk of getting stuck.  So I veered to the right and then swung a hard left into my driveway.

It was terrifying.  My tires spun like crazy and my low traction light was on the entire time, but I made it up the driveway. I was so tense the entire two hours that my body ached when I finally got home and allowed myself to relax. 

As I was getting out of my car, I could hear other cars that had been behind me spinning their tires.  I came inside and took this picture.

A backlog of cars trying to get up the hill, because one of the cars further up couldn't make it.  We felt bad and thought about helping, but by this point I was so hungry that I was near tears and there was no way I was going to go outside again without food in my stomach.

Anyway, allow me to (sort of) change the subject.

A lot of people have been cursing the Groundhog on Facebook and Twitter for predicting an early spring, with a spring tease even thrown in there, only to hit us with more snow. 

I would like to serve as the Groundhog's defense against these lunatics. First of all, Phil is a groundhog! (And a really cute one at that.) Poor thing doesn't even have opposable thumbs.  If he did, he could at least use all of that weather-predicting technology that he has so readily available.  Oh wait.  He doesn't have weather predicting technology equipment.  But you know who does???  Weather people!  And yet, with all of their technology AND their opposable thumbs they still can't manage to warn us of a massive snow storm 24 hours in advance. 

Failures, all of them.  Enormous, massive weather predicting failures. 

This storm should not have caught us by surprise.  There is 6 inches of snow out there in my driveway right now.  Yesterday, they were just saying "rain/snow showers" and no accumulation mentioned.  If weather people had any credibility in my eyes, it is now lost.  (By the way, they lost their credibility with me a long time ago.)  There is no excuse for not being able to warn people of this.  Some of us could have left work early to beat the horrible traffic.  Some of us wouldn't have had to risk our lives on some of the worst roads in long-term memory, especially since some of us really aren't comfortable driving in snow. 

Some of us are really disappointed in you, weather people.