I thought maybe this deserves its own topic now that it is evident just how severe this is. I guess since it has been mostly rural it's not going to get much attention in the news, though that could change yet.
Here is some of what I've found in southern NE the last 2 days. http://www.extremeinstability.com/06-12-31.htm Any on here have anything from this event? Reading some of MikeU's comments it sounds just as bad through KS and into TX. I'll try to keep updating images and add some text.
Wow! That reminds me so much of the Ice Storm we had here in the Montreal area in 1998. Like any other photogenic weather events, it's so beutifull but so destructive at the same time :mad:
Beautifull pics there Mike!
Doh! Looks like Drummond's server is begging for mercy. ;) Either that or you've asploded your bandwidth cap or something.
Those pics ARE freakin' incredible. The bowed tranmission towers are just eerie.
Yeah, Mike got Farked, torrented and a few other things all in one day. We're trying to get him a work around right now. He'll be back up.
Thanks for these images, Mike! They're outstanding! Surely its a lot of damage...we had similar about 10 years ago, 5-6cm of ice everywhere! Its was heavy raining at -6 for whole night and morning...I still can't believe it was true.
Excelent job and congrats on your awesome ice storm chase!
Pretty incredible icing...I've seen that before while I was in school at OU. I had to get into my car with a baseball bat. I believe this nasty Nebraska ice storm was probably an even worse situation than that was.
Mike -- if you get this any time soon (I don't have your phone # or I'd call,) email me; I was mentioning your photos to one of our editors, and they were very interested in seeing them to run in the paper. I told them about the photos of the downed transmission towers, the thick ice around things, and the confused looking cow -- they seemed very interested. If they run it, they'd credit you and likely include a link to your website (if it's back up by then.)
digicana at gmail dot com
Very incredible pictures indeed.
Was there any ice left from the first storm, or was this all "new" ice from this storm system? Are there any radar estimates from this area to give us an idea how much actually fell?
Some of these are extremely compressed to fit the size limit on here(and some are resaved JPGs to do so...also doesn't help quality).
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=53&stc=1&d=1167778012
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=54&stc=1&d=1167778099
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=55&stc=1&d=1167778184
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=56&stc=1&d=1167778216
I'm getting "invalid attachment" messages on all of Mike's most recent links.
Nice pictures Mike and Dean!
The worst I've seen was the ice storm on Jan. 2005 (I remember power going out before halftime of the national championship game that night). My dad and I went out and found we were the only area in town without power (went to my aunt's house the next day), and we saw tons of flooding (flood warnings were posted ahead of the major cold air). When the cold air came in the early morning hours, an instant 1-1.5" of ice covered the roads (everything else was already ice).
This looks at least 2 to 3 times worse than that one (people were without power for up to 2 weeks on the Jan. 2005 storm). I find it surreal that I was at a bowl game in Houston and we left after the game instead of waiting until the morning. If we didn't do that, we would have been dodging tornadic storms (I usually want a weather radio when in that situation). Then hearing how many places had 12" of snow with 12 more hours of snow after that. I remember seeing the pink line on radar, but almost no one in the KS media said anything about the ice, just the snow.
Fortunately I got to look at Mike's photos before his site's bandwidth got exceeded.
Some of those images were pretty horrendous......blades of grass encased in what looks like solid glass, but actually it's ice. It's insane to think that a stalk of dried vegetation barely .5" thick can accumulate something that looks to me to be about 6" or more of solid ice.
It's a pity that this was an event that never got a whole lot of coverage. I hope those people out there in the Nebraskan winter wilderness get some power restored soon or life is going to become pretty miserable! From what I hear, Goodland got whacked too although with more of the snow-variety rather than ice accumulations. The Plains are renowned for their brutal winter weather sometimes.
KL
Whoever thought that such destruction could be so beautiful? Those are great pics, Mike, but I sure feel for those people. The power grid probably won't be completely restored for many weeks, and the property damage totals will be over the moon.
I can still remember a similar storm up here in Quebec a few years ago. You guys sent ConEd up here to help rebuild hundreds of power pylons brought down by the ice. We'll never forget it.
John
www.skywatch7.com
Latest Damage Estimates that I was able to find today : 2,900 miles of downed line and 8,300 poles and structures destroyed in SC-NE Nebraska .
Nearly 1000 utility linemen and contract employees working to restore power.
I might as well include a couple pics since I have a few more done now
This one kinda looks like the "middle finger" of ice :)
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/142/jan27uo2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
About 1.60" of precip before top froze shut
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/3146/jan32tv0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Dean Cosgrove
http://www.chasetours.com/
I guess since it has been mostly rural it's not going to get much attention in the news, though that could change yet.
Yeah, I read some of the MD's about it when it was happening in Southern NE, but I didn't realize how horrible it was until I heard something about it on local radio today and saw your awesome pictures! It's beautiful, but bad news for both farming and just for the people who live out there. I can imagine it will be several weeks, possibly months before everything is up and running again. Thanks again for posting those great pics Mike!
WOW! :eek:
The ice looks like its an inch or more thick in many places, and those huge lines down is just shocking. That is some damage that will cause some people to not have power for at least a month if there is no other bad weather that delays/destructs further :( Poll: Many across area unprepared for disaster. | Article from ::
Keywords: Antelope Creek, Plains Village, Texas Panhandle, agriculture, Profile: Ice storm in Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas and the Texas.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-140535739.htmlHOME |
I guess since it has been mostly rural it's not going to get much attention in the news, though that could change yet.
Man amazing pictures I had no idea it was that bad; not even the media here in E NE has made it apparent how severe the damage is they only mention a few NPPD customers with out power.
Very incredible pictures indeed.
Was there any ice left from the first storm, or was this all "new" ice from this storm system? Are there any radar estimates from this area to give us an idea how much actually fell?
All the ice had melted from the ice storm a week ago. The tree damage from that one was fairly obvious as I drove to my target on the 29th. So this was all new ice. GID has some stuff on their site about precip totals via radar. They seemed a bit off from the glance I had.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/gid/?n=stormsummary
None of those ice reports come from the worst areas. The 1 inch at Junita is close. It seemed to be the worst west of there and especially around Funk and Kenasaw.....well....most everywhere from Junita(roughly Hastings) west to at least Holdredge was all very bad.
"It could take 6 months to a year to get all these problems worked out," says Behle. Posted 6:30 pm Jan 2nd
NEMA spokesman Jim Bunstock says officials are still assessing the damage, but the state will likely pursue a disaster declaration that would free up federal money for repairs. Posted Jan 3 10:30 am .
Likely? Still assessing? That seems screwy at this point. It seems disaster declarations are issued very quickly after far lesser things.
See, we've been trying to tell you that there's no tornadoes in western Nebraska. There IS no western Nebraska!
Impressive images. Reminds me of the ice storm we had down here Dec. 25-27, 2000 that was quite destructive.
I saw some aerial footage of those 12-16 ft. drifts down by Lamar CO. Talk about a historical situation and certainly pretty sad situation for cattle ranchers and people just needing to get from pt. A to pt. B. I saw a road grader in footage where the drift was as high as the cab. :eek:
The coverage of this whole storm was just plain inept. 2+ inches of ice and 16 ft. drifts would equal end of the world in the Northeast according to the media bias. When it happens in the Plains, and you get the ole' proverbial media producer yawn. Need to do some dropsondes with camermen !! :rolleyes: That might generate some excitement.
On TWC they just had a guy talking that toured the area with the governor, must have been a power company representative. He says, "There may be up to 1,000 poles down." Up to 1,000...lol. Orrrrrrr there could be a whole hell of a lot more than that. This was just after they said it was a whole lot worse than they originally thought. Then maybe one should say, "at least 1,000".
On local news (radio) heard a rep from one of the power companies (Southern Power, I think) saying that they (alone) had 3000 poles down/broken. They said that they get their power from NPPD. NPPD is talking damages in the tens of millions. If you add it all together, I think this might be a good time to look into switching over to natural gas.
:)
Interesting statement just on the local news for this storm. They said 2,900 miles of lines were down after the storm. 55,000 without power. Now 7,000 without power(using a lot of generators for towns) and 2,600 miles of lines still down. 2,900 to 2,600 means there is a loooong ways to go. I believe this was just for NE. I wonder how many poles there are in a mile. Eeek. And now it is likely to get brutally cold.
Looks a lot like the January 1998 event in Canada. It takes a lot to bring down the steel truss high-tension line towers. The good news is that temps should get up into the 40s during the day for a while, allowing some of this to melt and make it bearable for people without heat.
Yeah my site is down. I'm not sure how soon I'll be able to get it back up. Here are some files I attached to st's server.
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=49&stc=1&d=1167774268
This was nw of Minden, south of Kearney NE. Guess you'll have to click this one to see those mangled transmission lines.
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=50&stc=1&d=1167774268
Somewhere east of Holdredge.
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http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=51&stc=1&d=1167774268
This is what the grass stems looked like, lol.
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=52&stc=1&d=1167777442
This was south of Kearney about 4 miles. I'll try and add a few more here.
More from TWC, lol. What the hell is wrong with them? Earlier I see stranded cattle footage and massive snow drifts. What is the big caption at the top of the screen? Denver CO .
I've been thinking the same thing. Denver...Denver...Denver...oh Albuquerque...well at least they know that not everybody lives in Denver. Not to diminish the storm effects in those fine cities, but it's like western NE/KS and eastern CO don't even exist. I realize holiday travel (Denver International) is a big deal, but what about the closed roads? And what about weeks-long power outages? That's just pitiful journalism - my two pennies.
"Mother nature gives us the finger again"
More bad news for the area, winds tomorrow (Monday) are forecast to be sustained around 40mph with gusts upwards of 55 maybe even 60. That will surely inhibit workers from continuing to carry out any reconstruction work, and I am sure will even cause some issues to whatever temporary setups they have in place.
Hastings office now has issued a high wind Warning for the area mentioning the impacts that these winds will have on already weakend lines
Here is part of what I posted in Reports along with an update from my Jan 2nd ice storm trip :
I will briefly (( try)) to express what I saw January 1 , 2007 in SC NE.
Mother Nature had a magnificent ice sculpture at every stop I made . It was breathtaking beauty with the back drop of incredible destruction to trees and power lines. This storm changed the landscape.
I had mixed feelings similar to tornadic destruction. I feel sorry for all those people who will not have power perhaps for several weeks.
Based on what I observed I would estimate that thousands of poles are down in SC through NE Nebraska.
I took 175 pics January 1st of this historic ice storm. Prior to this event, the most pics I had taken of anything in one day was about 50 .
Jan 2nd I spent the day in Phelps County , NE . The extent of the damage really started to sink in as I saw several trucks loaded with poles and other supplies arrive.
Just using one E/W road as an example --ALL-- poles/lines were down for several miles . The crews were removing what remained of the damaged poles . They will not be repairing the electrical system along this road they will need to start from nothing and totally re-build it .
The local radio station told people in rural areas to prepare to be without power for perhaps several weeks .
I took an additional 90 pics Jan 2nd in this area . One of the most amazing things I saw was ice so thick that it totally filled a fence with a wall of ice .
The ice was up to 3" thick in this area.
The ice was so thick in the tall grass in the following pic that I was able to walk on TOP of the grass . Lets just say that it was quite an adventure to get up to this fence :)
http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/430/jan24xy9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
One word: amazing
http://img459.imageshack.us/img459/4848/jan23dx6.jpg
Dean Cosgrove
http://www.chasetours.com/
Man amazing pictures I had no idea it was that bad; not even the media here in E NE has made it apparent how severe the damage is they only mention a few NPPD customers with out power.
Man, tell me about it. It'd been driving me nuts. I think it is because it is worth just south of Kearney and Grand Island, and it starts getting very bad just west of Hastings. From what I can tell the power companies in the area are maybe just now starting to get a grasp on how bad it is. I don't think anyone can till they see it for themselves and drive on and on and see how extensive it is.
More from TWC, lol. What the hell is wrong with them? Earlier I see stranded cattle footage and massive snow drifts. What is the big caption at the top of the screen? Denver CO . Are the cattle stuck in rush hour traffic? Now they just showed some big ice accumulations while talking about all the power outages. What is the big caption at the top of that clip? Omaha NE . People must not be able to understand general areas like, southern Nebraska, or eastern Colorado, so lets just give them the biggest city in the state and leave it at that. I must have missed that inch + of solid ICE in Omaha. Maybe when a tornado or severe storm hits rural NE they'll just say, Omaha NE .
Just a quick report from Kearney. I live about 8 blocks from the center of town (2 blocks from the university campus). As I write this my neighborhood has been without power for about 70 hours. Saturday night, after the power went out, the scene was quite surreal. This storm was at least three times worse than the one we had a week ago. That one took out all the weak branches. This one took down strong living branches. The greater thickness of ice was assisted by pretty high winds. The sound (about one a minute) of branches breaking and falling to the ground along with hundreds of pounds of thick ice was like nothing I've ever heard. The evening was punctuated with blue and green flashes of false "lightning" as transformers blew and wires sparked. It looked like something from "War of the Worlds". I haven't seen Mike's pics yet (site is redirecting to a dummy page) and I haven 't been out of Kearney yet but the city looks like a war zone. Even last night (long after the storm was over) the north side of city light poles had literally 3" of ice on them. Lawns look like they are made of glass marbles - each blade of grass making up a bubble 3/4" in diameter.
This is the latest from NPPD: http://www.nppd.com/Newsroom/NewsRelease.asp?NewsReleaseID=231
It may be worth reviewing some tips in case this happens to you:
http://www.nppd.com/winter_safetytips.asp
I'm quite glad that we have a gas stove (that requires no electricity). We're keeping a turkey fryer kettle of water on low heat which provides humidity and heat. Each morning finds the house a little colder (mine's an 80-year-old brick 1-1/2 story). Cooking/baking warms the house (the kitchen is downright hot). A front (north) coat closet provides a nice "refrigerator" and outdoors is our freezer. Daughter's apartments have electricity so we can take showers as needed. The worst part is being without computer/internet - i'm writing this from the university server room, which is running off of a diesel generator.
Sounds as if campus will be closed tomorrow (not official yet) and depending upon power may be closed even longer. This is one for the books!
http://www.extremeinstability.com/06-12-31.htm
http://www.extremeinstability.com/06-12-31b.htm
9 pages of ice images. Saving for web is so much nicer on storm shots(less detail). Some of those they'd be all jpg-a-fied if they were under 100k. They are all pretty much pushed to the edge on getting to a low file size...so some might look fairly low quality.
Doh! Looks like Drummond's server is begging for mercy. ;) Either that or you've asploded your bandwidth cap or something. I dunno, but that isn't exactly a compelling Dryline Hosting advert, if you know what I mean.
Those pics ARE freakin' incredible. The bowed tranmission towers are just eerie. Too bad nobody can see them because your host pulled the plug when you needed it most.
Whoever thought that such destruction could be so beautiful? Those are great pics, Mike, but I sure feel for those people. The power grid probably won't be completely restored for many weeks, and the property damage totals will be over the moon.
I can still remember a similar storm up here in Quebec a few years ago. You guys sent ConEd up here to help rebuild hundreds of power pylons brought down by the ice. We'll never forget it.
John
www.skywatch7.com (http://www.skywatch7.com)
I thought a lot about the beauty of such destructive forces(not all different from tornadoes). It's an odd contrast that is for sure. I wondered why couldn't ice be green and slimy, something not beautiful like crystal. Why can't tornadoes just be beautiful without the destruction. It was pretty at first, but by the end of today it was getting depressing, for the people that will have to deal with it. Like Dan mentions, at least it will warm. That area could easily have 0 for a high this time of year. One other thing I thought a lot about were the lineman. That must take a special breed. To me that would be extremely depressing to look at. Like where does one even start.
I was around in 98 when we had an ice storm in quebec. It lasted for a good week. Apparently between 40mm and 100mm of ice fell in the south of the province, being that montreal was smack dab in the middle of it. I was one of the lucky ones that didnt lose power but i remember hearing something like 500 000 people withough electricity, if not more. It was really impressive. The city was shut down for at least 2 weeks.
As for the damages, I believe it cause 3 billion dollars in damages. Really, incredible.
On TWC they just had a guy talking that toured the area with the governor, must have been a power company representative. He says, "There may be up to 1,000 poles down." Up to 1,000...lol. Orrrrrrr there could be a whole hell of a lot more than that. This was just after they said it was a whole lot worse than they originally thought. Then maybe one should say, "at least 1,000".
Dean what would you say, from what you saw? Up to or at least? Perhaps they are trying to gradually walk into reality. Maybe my idea of 1000 in that large of an area is off, I don't know. It seems obvious though when you see stretches of MANY down in area after area...in your LINE path....inside a very wide area...that it should be considerably greater than 1000.
I almost forgot. It was soooo strange LOOKING for power poles for your shots. That hit me over and over. Normally I'm going mad trying to get to locations without them.
Wow...very nice photographs Mike. I had not the slightest idea it got to be that frozen/frosty in the plains.
Stunning imagery Mike...it does seem that some of the most amazing and beautiful sights to behold in nature are also the most destructive...I suppose that may be due to them also being things you don't see every day.
We have not had an ice storm like that in the UK for many, many years, although we do get some mildly disruptive freezing rain every so often.
Having chased around the areas in your pics, it seems very odd to me that they are so icy, etc! I am only used to seeing them when it's fairly hot!
Incredible pictures Mike! Hopefully the power is back on down there by now!
Drove from the in-law's place on the plains of E. CO yesterday after dodging road closures throughout CO for the past week, and I can tell you that from around Oakley to Wakeeney, KS and south they were hit VERY hard by the ice. Some of those people will be lucky if they get power back by next week. We talked to lots of family around the Sharon Springs, KS area that received 30+ inches of snow............amazing.
Eight foot drifts were surrounding the farm where we were, and that was with 15" of snow.
Great pics Mike!
Great pics Mike! Katie and I saw the same thing driving back on I-70 from Goodland Saturday. It seemed to get really bad in between Oakley and Hays. We wanted to stop and take a million pics but after driving around Colby and Goodland during and after the storm we just wanted to get out of there before dark.
My father in law is a regional manager for OPPD and was sent to Holdredge, NE as of now to help out with this disaster. Its kind of a funny situation we have in this family, my wife and I will leave to chase a storm or storms and when we get back her father has to take off to the same place to repair the damage. Anywho, he told me today that he has taken a bunch of pics but can't get them back to me because he can't get any internet in his hotel. I will try to post them when I get them.
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