As an Atlanta resident who lived through this disaster, this video is great! You called out all the major contributing factors. The timing of the snow, which usually doesn't stick in the middle of the day in Atlanta, the gradual changes in the forecasted area, which caused confusion due to not understanding the forecast, the lack of city equipment to clear roads, and the naturally horrible traffic that turned a routine snowstorm into one of the worst Atlanta disasters in recent decades. I'm also glad you pointed out how difficult it is to predict where the boundary between snow and rain is, since that has a HUGE effect on how much snow we get here in Atlanta. For years after 2014, most of the "snow" forecasts ended up being mostly rain, with almost no snow accumulation. Excellent job calling out the similar snowstorm a few weeks before and the other storm after that were both completely unmemorable, because everyone stayed home instead of going to work/school those days. The real disaster wasn't the snow, it was the insane traffic, accidents, and the fact that it was routine week day where everyone was away from home when the storm hit. The fact that when schools closed in the middle of the day, everyone I knew suddenly left at the exact same time, turning our regularly bad traffic into a complete gridlock. The fact that busses normally service multiple schools in a single day, so one bus getting stuck ended up stranding multiple schools. It was like a bank run, except with Atlanta roads. My experience was that I was sick with a minor cold, so I stayed home from college that day. I'm incredibly thankful that I stayed home. If I had gone to school I would have been stranded, since Marta quickly stopped operating once things got bad. I ended up helping a few other men push cars up the steep hill outside my home. One of the guys was a runner who called the road up the hill a "graveyard" of abandoned and stuck cars, and it was still early afternoon. I still remember the look of pity he had on one driver who was obviously struggling in a car not built for the icy hills. It felt good to help out, even if some of the people I helped never made it home that night. My mother drove for hours and hours in the snow, and finally parked her car in a Publix lot and walked the last 2 miles home. She arrived some time around 9pm. I had a lot of friends who ended up getting stuck somewhere, and a few friends who opened their homes to people stuck nearby. After I got too tired and cold to keep trying to get cars unstuck, I went back inside and made some hot chocolate. That week was a disaster for most people in Atlanta, but I had fun helping people and relaxing at home. It was a surreal experience to be sitting at home watching things unfold. Anecdotally, no one really expected that much snowy, even if that's what the forecast had said that morning. I remember a few people being completely caught off guard by the snow, likely because they either remembered the warm Monday, or because they had only paid attention to the Monday forecast that said Atlanta wouldn't get any snow. The forecast changed pretty quickly, but no one seemed to notice or care. I think everyone latched onto the term "polar vortex" because it definitely felt like that storm came out of nowhere, and everyone was looking for explanations for why no one predicted the storm. It's incredibly ironic that the morning forecast was 100% accurate. It's just that no one paid attention. If schools had been canceled that morning due to the 80% chance of snow, I'm sure things would have gone down very differently. None of the other snow storms have had the same effect as Snowmageddon, even though we've gotten more physical snow other times. Mostly because Atlanta now primitively salts the roads quite aggressively before any snow storm, people are a lot more willing to stay home "just in case", and schools now close if there's a good chance of snow. It does mean some makeup days at the end of the year, but I think it's worth it to avoid a similar disaster. It really was the perfect storm of the worst possible snow timing, bad city planning, bad communication, and everyone being collectively unprepared for snow.

@weatherboxstudios

3 ай бұрын

Hey Alex! Thanks for sharing your firsthand experience of this event. It's incredible to see not only the number of people who were affected, but the number of people like you who helped. I'm glad Atlanta has taken steps to make sure a disaster like this doesn't happen again. Cheers!

@n7y8c7

3 ай бұрын

Alex I JUST missed it. I was working at Delta at the time and they were being cagey about us leaving. We were finally released by 4. I immediately got on 75N because I lived in Buckhead at the time. But when I realized traffic was only barely moving, I took the Sylvan Rd. exit. That's what saved me from getting stuck. My 20 minute drive to 26th St., took an hour and a half. But I made it home safely. I'm so glad this doc actually mentioned the black ice. It was treacherous, and 2 inches of snow is definitely not that big of a deal. But black ice IS.

@MartinMCade

3 ай бұрын

I was living in Roswell (Northern suburb of Atlanta) and working in Dunwoody at the time. I tried leaving work when everyone else did, I got about a block then turned around and parked and went back to work until after midnight. Just walking was an icy experience and it was easy to slip and fall. I ended up trying again around midnight when Google showed traffic on Georgia 400 clearing a bit. It still took 5 hours to get home, and I ended up walking about a mile after my car wouldn't get up an icy hill. I grew up with real winters and I'm sure I learned driving skills that helped me that night, but once the roads are covered with ice, driving skill doesn't matter unless you have studded tires. Which nobody in the area has.

@monie7293

2 ай бұрын

As an ATLien I can agree with all accounts of what happened. Now everyone goes to the store for essentials even at the hint of snow.

@alvinjackson-4p1l1ca3

2 ай бұрын

Thank God for Marta. I rode the train through all that mess. I could see the traffic backed up as the train went over I-20. It was a very very horrible day.

I avoided getting stuck in that foolishness by maybe an hour or so. As soon as the snowflakes started coming down heavily and I saw that all the traffic on the west side of Atlanta Metro was red on Google Maps, I told my coworkers "I'm headed home, I'll sign back on when I get there." I didn't wait for anyone to "let" me go.

@Kraang

3 ай бұрын

Many people survived in Lahaina by following the same logic. They saw the issues and didn't bother waiting for someone to tell them "Hey this is serious, evacuate or die". Sadly too many people are the embodiment of a dumb protagonist in horror films despite how much they scream at their screens "DON'T OPEN THE DOOR"

@tHebUm18

3 ай бұрын

Live in Minneapolis, MN with a job that can be done remotely and do the same. Even with proper salting and snow removal efforts, rush hour that's backed up when it's bone dry is going to be an absolute mess with a winter storm no matter how accustomed the drivers are. Benefits me cruising home with no traffic, but also benefits everyone else by making myself one fewer person out on the roads for all the people who can't duck out of work early.

@lowwastehighmelanin

3 ай бұрын

Someone's safety minded!

@lowwastehighmelanin

3 ай бұрын

@@Kraang this is severely victim blaming. You should be ashamed.

@Drdirtydee

3 ай бұрын

​@@lowwastehighmelaninsome times the victim can hold some responsibility.

I think what also made this storm's impact so bad is that Atlanta is home to a LOT of people who grew up in the Snow belt. Many of those people (myself included) saw 2 inches of winter precipitation and completely disregarded it. Many of us failed to realize that the reason we were able to still go about business as usual was because our hometowns had crews, equipment, and other resources to mitigate the impact of winter weather.

@albundy06

3 ай бұрын

And people that know how to drive. People that don't have summer tires on etc. Towns and cities that have to deal with the snow all the time are not the difference maker. They attempt to keep the highways and the main roads clear first. And then it trickles down from there. They constantly drive around on unplowed roads with multiple inches of snow on them. They don't cancel life and stay inside until the plows come and clear all the residential roads.

@snugglemuffins762

3 ай бұрын

I like to compare winter in the south to snow squalls, the difference between treated and untreated roads is astronomical

@tHebUm18

3 ай бұрын

@@albundy06 Yup--when I worked overnights many years ago, got off work around 6AM to like 8 inches of unplowed snow on the residential roads the last couple miles and a car that has 5 inches of ground clearance. Made it home just fine--all about keeping the momentum up.

@jrt2792

3 ай бұрын

I'm from the (216) CLE, I definitely can see why those motorists got complacent since they're under the impression that ATL has a winter road plow system even though snow barely falls down there.

@LeScratch89

3 ай бұрын

It really is all about the infrastructure setup and how well they can handle the event. Atlanta is pretty much the southern edge of where folks in gov't might *maybe* consider having something on standby for snow or ice, but accumulating snow is so rare that I believe the city errs on the side of not spending money on expensive equipment that may not get used for years. I've encountered northerners who laugh at FL's response to the winter storm there in late 1989 but the nearest winter equipment to FL is going to be in northern GA/AL or western SC. 500 miles away. A glaze of ice plus some snow with said winter storm was enough to close almost every bridge north of a line from Daytona to Cedar Key, as it should have been because there was no way to make those crossings safe until the ice melted naturally.

A lot of people don't understand how serious even an inch of snow can be if the infrastructure isn't prepared for it. When I was a kid living in Eastern Washington(a high desert that rarely sees precipitation), my city was regularly shut down for days at a time from mere inches of snow because of a combination of inexperienced drivers and a lack of salt/snowplows. Even rain could sometimes shut down the city because of lack of driving experience and roads that accumulate water because they're not built to shed water.

@harryparsons2750

3 ай бұрын

That’s called incompetence

@scpatl4now

3 ай бұрын

If it had been just snow, there would not have been much of a problem, but when it all gets coated in ice...nobody can really drive on ice. There was about 1/2" of ice on top of the snow.

@circleinforthecube5170

3 ай бұрын

@@harryparsons2750 yeah like how its incompetent midwestern infrastructure isin't built to accommodate the hot floridian sun, its not supposed to snow in atlanta, thats why the infrastructure isint built for it

@BsedMan-if6tb

3 ай бұрын

​@@scpatl4nowI drove home on over 4 inches of solid ice before. You people just don't know how to drive.

@Jinkuzu

3 ай бұрын

That amount of snow and ice is absolutely nothing. Im laughing at how much trouble that amount of snow caused. Its not infrastructure, its just having good tires and not driving like morrons.

As a native NYer who lived through Snowmaggadeon in ATL, it wasn't functionally two inches of snow, but ultimately 2 inches of ice. I got off work in Midtown ATL at about 10pm and remember it being freezing out with all that hardening slush still on the road, and I knew right then it would be a disaster. It was a perfect storm of unlikely events. Here's a quick rundown: yes it snowed two inches during the day, but the most important factor was that about 6pm it rained just a tiny bit (only about 10min of rain), but enough to turn the two inches of snow, to a thick slush. Then the Temps dropped at night, and all that slush froze to a 2in thick layer of ice. THAT was the issue. What I meant by a perfect storm of unlikely events was that it took erratic Temps that went from, cold enough to snow, then slightly warm enough to rain, then back down to sub-freezing... all within a span of a few hours. That situation is highly atypical. I lived in NY for my 1st 20 years and have never seen that specific weather pattern before. On top of that, if it had rained even just 15min longer, it would have melted all the snow. Of course, Atlanta's inability to clear the 2 inches of snow was a huge issue, but to me, the issue was the fact that it all turned to ice. If it never froze and remained two inches of just snow, people would've still been able to drive to some degree, but two inches of solid ice is virtually impossible to drive on. Plus, plowing 2" of solid ice is much harder than plowing snow. When they did plow over the next several days, it tore up ALL the refectors on the dashed lines on every freeway in metro Atlanta. When didn't have reflectors back for many months, it took years before even half of them were replaced, and we still have a lot that are still not installed to this day. Of course, we got the nation's ridicule about how a mere 2" of snow absolutely ground metro Atlanta to a halt, but again, it wasn't the initial 2" of snow, it was the formation of 2" of ice, and that's a HUGE difference... and everyone keeps missing the full context.

@laryanryan9170

Ай бұрын

And the biggest problem was the hundreds of big trucks everywhere because once a few of them slid and blocked the freeways no one could go anywhere.

@fjordpitsky4486

24 күн бұрын

Lol I always say a southern snowball can kill you. Definitely not like the snow up north

I was in 4th grade when this storm hit in BMH AL. A decade later I still vividly remember anxiously sitting in my classroom, watching dozens of my classmates leave before the calls for pickup slowed to a stop. I slowly realized that my parents wouldn’t make it to get my little sister and I anytime soon. My sister and I were retrieved when the school served us dinner, and we didn’t have to stay the night, thanks to an uncle and aunt who lived nearby and borrowed an off-road vehicle from a neighbor. I recall seeing so many cars abandoned/stuck, how frightened we were because of fallen trees/power lines and the steep country roads. The house was without power and was running on a generator, my sister and I slept in sleeping bags with our cousins in their beds. It wasn’t until two days later that my mother, a hospital worker, finally managed to return to us, and three days before my father, a police officer, could. Our little community rebounded quickly, though. Once the weather cleared and things settled, there was a big thank-you party for first responders and teachers at our school, some teachers endearingly made t-shirts to commemorate “surviving the snowmageddon.”

@FastGuy1

2 ай бұрын

We in Texas still remember the winter of 2022 😅. Similar event occurred here too with our power outages. It wasn’t much about the snow but more about the temperatures. I remember my city dropped to -7°F because of the wind chill

@lazloperry5242

2 ай бұрын

Pfffffff. Typical Canadian day. Toughen up and tell your folks to learn to drive, they either can't drive for anything or never liked their kids

@Scenic_328

2 ай бұрын

​@@lazloperry5242come down here when there's a hurricane maple boy we'll see how them snow tires handle

@juanalmzn2263

2 ай бұрын

I was in 6th grade when this happened at the time. I was stuck on a bus in a highway for a while. Then coincidentally one of my uncles was there, pulled over to the bus and picked me up and I headed home. It was fun and I made snowmen while me and my friend in 5th grade played Cod ghosts, fifa 14, and Rayman legends

@FastGuy1

2 ай бұрын

@@juanalmzn2263 That’s a nice childhood memory

as someone who got affected by snowmageddon 2014, THANK YOU for talking about this!!! it was one of the most terrifying things that i’ve ever experienced but also sparked my interest in meteorology. i vividly remember the shit that it caused. nothing is more terrifying than hearing the cracking of an old tree falling atop the house you’re in because of the ice, snow, and winds. i did want to eat the ice though.

@kellyngrey4950

3 ай бұрын

I made it through the Snowpocalypse of '21 in Texas. I sympathize. We are survivors!

@shanelizotte6318

3 ай бұрын

Come to northern Maine where snow happens from October/November to May at times with temps occasionally colder than -40

@lowwastehighmelanin

3 ай бұрын

Hope you didn't 🤢

@quasar42069

3 ай бұрын

@@shanelizotte6318 okay? cool? not what this comment was about or relating to though.

@kellyngrey4950

3 ай бұрын

@@shanelizotte6318 You missed the entire point of the video. It's not about northern places used to getting snow and ice every year, for months out of the year. It's about places much further south that don't get snow and ice on a yearly basis and not having the systems, infrastructure, or necessary equipment to handle that snow and ice.

I will never forget it. Took an hour to drive 1 block. Parked in the Walmart Parking lot on Ashford Dunwoody.. Walked a mile to my wife's work, drove her car down the wrong side of the road, parked it in a church parking lot, then walked a half mile back to our apartment. So many colleagues spent the night on the hwy. We had a couple of colleagues stay in our apt, since it was so close and they could walk there. Everyone left their cars on the road, and people helped strangers. It was a terrible but also great day.

@bobbbobb4663

Ай бұрын

Similar story here. Wife was stuck on Highway 92 in Roswell and I had to borrow a neighbors Lexus GX with low range 4WD to get her. Roads were littered with stranded cars that made it difficult to dodge but I made it. Kids were stuck at a daycare that we ultimately walked about a mile to pick them up the next morning.

Green Bay native here, everything he said about that month is completely true. Packers fans will ALWAYS show up for a game. The colder, the better. That Irish cream hot cocoa keeps me going 😂

I lived in Columbus, GA during this. I grew up in Michigan so that snow was nothing to me, but it was magical seeing the kids in my apartment complex seeing snow and playing in it for the first time. ❤

@circleinforthecube5170

3 ай бұрын

damn now it doesen't even snow up here enough, there was only like a week or two this year where snow in detroit stuck

@calebwright9974

2 ай бұрын

Yep that’s like 1 of the 4 times in 20 years we get snow done here in Columbus.

@em84c

Ай бұрын

Im in Australia and never seen snow in my life! It is something I should do before I die

@csc7225

Ай бұрын

When I was really little, we moved from Louisiana to Colorado. Once the snow started, my sister and I were out in the snow playing every day. Eventually the other little kids on the block joined us. Their parents told my parents that their kids were sick of the snow and cold, but seeing my sister and I having so much fun made them rethink. We only lived there three years, but it was magical!

I was hit hard by the second Snowmageddon (more commonly known as the Snowpocalypse) in NC--got let out early, went to Target to pick up groceries, snow came suddenly and we were stranded on the roads for 2 hours. I remember seeing cars in ditches, people walking home on the highway, etc. The famous meme from that day was taken in the area!

@snowhawk_

3 ай бұрын

I honestly didn’t know the US had a Snowmageddon. In 2020 Newfoundland had a storm called that that made it on the news in Texas and I thought that was the only one

@daniconner-johnson7652

3 ай бұрын

The flaming car on Glenwood Ave. A classic.

@guydreamr

3 ай бұрын

Was this around Charlotte?

@Legority

2 ай бұрын

nope@@guydreamr

@guydreamr

2 ай бұрын

@@Legority Well where then? No one's asking for your address, just the city or, if you prefer, the general region of NC (e.g. Mountains, Piedmont, or Coastal Plain). Would be interesting to know how snow affects different parts of NC.

I had 3 friends who realized they would never make it home so they came to my house which was closer to downtown and we just hung out till the next day. It was insane how bad things got.

Very cool to see you cover our area - but man that day was nuts. I worked at a grocery store less than 2 miles away. They begged us to come in so we walked to work to join the chaos, passing by cars jamming on icy hills and abandoning them until it was over. Worked the fuel center until we ran out of gas, then helped inside - people were grateful. Some folks slept in the store that night because they couldn't make it home (customers and associates). A friend who grew up in PA was able to drive and get us back home and we just had a snow party. His dad was stuck on the highway for about 36 hours. News reports of neighbors bringing food and water to people sleeping in their cars, offering shelter. Any risk of snow in the forecast and the city goes into lockdown mode now.

I think a major part of why nobody was prepared was how warm it has been prior to this. I recall walking the neighbor’s dog in a tshirt and shorts the day prior. Nobody took it seriously until the snow started sticking, which was around 1pm. I was in middle school at the time and remember how frantic it got when they tried to get buses for us, as we had the latest release time out of the K-12 program. One of my neighbors walked to pick up his son, and the school basically sent all the kids from the neighborhood walking home with him. My parents ended up getting home at around 9pm. Several of my classmates had to spend the night at school! Nowadays, if I see snow in the forecast, I stay home.

@Dratchev241

3 ай бұрын

now you get an idea of what it is like living in Indiana... one day its 60 and next day its -10 lol

@Penultimate1785

2 ай бұрын

​@@Dratchev241 thanks sans undertale

@RNG_Anarchist

2 ай бұрын

Dude, it was typical warm rainy weather for the 3 days prior, and then I walked out the factory working mornings, s I had been in for 12 hrs at 6 pm, and everything was frozen it was wild

@chrisconley8583

Ай бұрын

Prior to the storm I lived in New England for 37 years. I lived in a town of 7000 people that had seven snowplows. I moved to Atlanta and County of 1 million people that had seven snowplows. It wasn’t a matter of being unprepared as much as it was there isn’t a need for that many snowplows per capita in Atlanta

My brother was one of the thousands who was stuck on the road. He slept in his car as well until he was able to park in a Wal-Mart parking lot and walked home. He does not discuss his experiences much more than that.

Ooh something I actually have a personal anecdote on. I was 10 when this happened, and it was pretty much exactly as you described. I didn't wind up staying overnight but it took my mother about 7 hours to get from the house to the school, and another 4 for us to get back. The highways were a complete loss, if you went on them at any point you were cooked, the surface roads were bad, but overcomeably bad. The only thing you undershoot how rare snow is in Atlanta, we haven't gotten 2 inches since snowmageddon, snow accumulation is a once every few years kind of thing, not once or twice a year.

@laryanryan9170

Ай бұрын

And don't forget the hills. If Atlanta was flat like most northern cities it wouldn't have been a problem.

Preparedness for snow is really, really important. I live in a semi-rural town in Canada, just 30 minutes outside Ottawa, and no matter how large a snow storm is expected (2 inches to us is a normal snowfall, something like a foot would be considered a storm), its practically a guarantee that by the next day, most roads will have been cleared. Its something every level of government, from Federal to County, expects and has plenty of experience and planning not just every year, but every month. Whilst, for a place like Atlanta, its a one-and-done deal that would otherwise take too much money to prepare for a single event that may-or-may-not happen.

@AJKPenguin

3 ай бұрын

Bingo! Aside, Texas has known to send public snow removal workers and city managers up north for training.

@alexlowe2054

3 ай бұрын

Fortunately, ever since Snowmageddon, the city pays to pre-salt the major roads, and residents are typically a lot more cautious about the risks of snow, working from home if they can. Schools are sometimes canceled ahead of time too. Those small things end up making a big difference. That, and not having the snow happen in the middle of the work day, before schools got let out. Snowmageddon was basically what happens when all 6 million Atlanta residents all suddenly get on the roads at the same time. Traffic is already a mess, but the timing of the snow turned it into a disaster.

@csc7225

Ай бұрын

Thank you for your reasoned assessment. With the exception of living three years in Colorado when I was young, I've always lived in the Deep South and Texas. I can't tell you the number of times snow has been forecast and we get a light dusting if we are lucky. City governments are in a lose-lose situation down here... if they spend money on rarely used snow equipment, they are being wasteful... until that once in a decade snow or ice storm shuts down the roads and then they should have magically produced the equipment.

It’s a great day when weatherbox uploads!

@dadogwitdabignose

3 ай бұрын

bro i love weatherbox so much this channel is amazing its like a treat you get a couple days per month

@WeatherWatcher14

3 ай бұрын

Ikr!@@dadogwitdabignose

As a Southerner, it was great to hear that people don't always understand how bad our roads can be down here. I happen to live in Knoxville which got a whopping 9-10 inches of snow last month, our worst since the 93 Storm of the Century. Because we were immediately hit with one of these "Polar Vortex" cold snaps after, the snow stayed on the ground for a week and where it melted during the day in the sun, it immediately turned into ice at night. It's also a hilly town, and we have so little snow equipment the only roads they were able to keep plowed with the snow falling were I-40/75. Everywhere else you were on your own. The only reason I ever saw a snowplow get to my house is that someone got a Bobcat from somewhere to plow, and that wasn't until 5 days after the snow fell. Knoxville was largely closed that entire week.

I was a senior in high school when this happened. The same storm system dumped sleet and freezing rain as far south as where I live in the Florida panhandle. A quarter inch of sleet and freezing rain fell, and it shut everything down for about three days; they had to retrofit sand spreaders to dump trucks full of sand borrowed from the beach to try to make the roads even remotely driveable. The bridges all froze over, and people were sledding down them. I had a classmate end up on a local news report about it. Nonstop during the event I heard the reports coming out of Atlanta, and we were all glad that we had escaped the worst of it, but the three days I missed from school were the closest thing to snow days I ever saw while in grade school (we had hurricane/tropical storm days instead).

I was in college at GSU when this happened. They shut down classes at 12:00pm and I was minutes away from getting on the interstate when my friends called me to ask them to get them a ride to their dorms from school. I turned around got them, took them back and then spent the next 6 hours without moving a mile. I hear on the radio that the i-75 North was shut down, so I turned around and was stuck in my friends dorm for 2 days. Had I actually got on the I-75 North when i got out of school, I would have been stuck out there for over 24 hours. I am so happy you covered this! This was such a massive moment for people we lived through it-not to be dramatic, but this was absolutely INSANE.

What surprises me is that this this was not as bad as the snow storms we got over Christmas 2010 and once again in January 2011. This storm in 2014 wasnt nearly as bad but its the one everyone talks about.

@josephayers-irusota2965

3 ай бұрын

Agreed. 2011 was way worse, but it also mostly occurred overnight, thus no traffic jam. The snow and ice stuck around far longer, though.

@poohssmartbrother1146

3 ай бұрын

agreed. Xmas 2010 was my first and only white christmas. The piedmont of NC got at least a foot on xmas, and That January had 2 more big storms

@microbios8586

2 ай бұрын

​@@josephayers-irusota29652011 was very bad! The snow didn't melt for almost a week. It people stuck in the shady, hilly suburbs where the ice kept refreezing. It was impossible for people to make it out of their subdivisions

@laryanryan9170

Ай бұрын

Who remembers the ice storm of 74? It rained and turned to sleet Around 5:00 that evening (I believe it was a Sunday) By the next morning everything had at least an inch of ice covering it. Tree limbs were touching the ground because of the weight of the ice and power was out all over the city because power lines were touching the ground also and power poles were breaking everywhere.

I was in 3rd grade when this happened. My dad picked me up from school but we didn't think to get my brother from middle school. He was stuck on the bus for a few hours I think until he got home. Later heard about people from other schools nearby sleeping in gyms and people just. stuck wherever they found themselves when it became too late. Flash forward to high school (we all still talk about it regularly) and someone brings up that the apush teacher had to help deliver his baby on the side of the road since they couldn't get to the hospital in time. Wild man. Wild.

I remember my father was stuck out in Cartersville about 9 miles from my home in Pauling during this storm. He luckily had someone drive by on a 4-wheeler and paid them $250 to drive him home. He said on the way it was like an apocalypse scene, cars scattered all down highway 61 on the shoulder, wrecked into each other, and stuck on the road. People walking for miles. We were worried he wasn’t going to make it home for the snow storm of the century (we were obsessed with snow as kids, dad loved it too), so here we are sledding down our hills and here comes my father, still in business attire, hanging on to the back of a 4 wheeler with 3 other people coming over the horizon 😂 man this was a super cool week for us. We were out of school for a whole week with this one

My dad recorded an iconic video from this when Al Roker ranted on the Atlanta infrastructure. For me this was the first snow I remember as a kid and getting out early from school for the week.

@seriouslyfunny11

Ай бұрын

It wasnt iconic.

10:58 THANK YOU! FINALLY someone who has an audience said it! I'm so tired of people from Canada, Russia, and Scandinavia constantly commenting "1 inch of snow stopped you?! HAH! We're currently on month 2 of nonstop snow!" The concept of living in an area where snow travel just isn't a thing unless you get lucky is hard for them to grasp.

@givemeyournachos

3 ай бұрын

Only thing I'd reccomend for southern folks is to swap the summer tires for all seasons or winter tires when the time comes. Summers to winters makes a hell of a difference in winter weather. But in a situation like this storm, it wouldn't help at all unless they had studded wheels. 😞

@sadBanker902

3 ай бұрын

Maybe start demanding that your politicians be less incompetent and actually prepare for events like this even if they are rare.

@FurryWrecker911

3 ай бұрын

@@sadBanker902 It's a lot more complicated than "politician bad." The weather report was weird. Nobody could really grasp what was in store since they hadn't had pattern like that. Ice storms are usually more predictable. Not here. Everyday Atlantans still went to work as if it was a regular day, schools still operated normally, and DOT didn't put in to have mutual aid at the ready, nor did anyone in a higher office recognize the danger either. You also have local, county, and state municipalities that all could have said something, but they couldn't understand the report, same as everyone else. The only people that even remotely understood it was NOAA, and they just gave out a "hey, expect a winter-y mix. Report's kinda odd" and that was that. That's a LOT of people who could have waved a red flag, but nobody did. They couldn't comprehend what they were about to be hammered by. Any single one of them could have said "nah, took risky" and gave the stay-home order. It wasn't until they were ankle deep in it that they all realized "oh, this weird radar image is actually kinda very bad." I can't agree with blaming any single person when there's so many active players on the field. It's like blaming a President for a decision that the accountant's assistant in Agricultural made. How is he supposed to know? How is ANYONE supposed to know?

@AceRasputin

3 ай бұрын

@@sadBanker902Great idea, spend tons of money on equipment that will rarely get used!

@anangryblooddk7966

3 ай бұрын

It wasn't really THAT bad. I saw so many drivers who had no idea what they were doing. Like some dumbass stopped in the middle of an intersection, on a hill, on Middlebrook Pike and then was somehow shocked that his car wouldn't move. But yet, both of my roommates, one from Cali, the other from Athens, could both recognize how stupid this dude was. It's not an issue of knowing how to react to snow, it's using common sense.

I really love that you not only focused on the problems that lead to making this a huge mess, but also how people did their best in a bad situation. Getting together online, helping each other, etc. It's very easy to look what could have been done better, and that is a massively important thing to do, but it's just as important to see what was done RIGHT. Also, huge props to actively working against the "It's not a big deal for us, why should it be for them?" mindset. Really great video as always!

Your videos have incredible production value and always look stunningly well made! Great work as always!

@weatherboxstudios

3 ай бұрын

Thank you for sticking around!

I remember I was in the 4th grade, and because of the snow forecast our school was going to get out early. Luckily my mother was already there at the school and decided to take us home even earlier. Boy were we lucky. As soon as we got home we heard about the traffic piling up everywhere. My father works about a 10 minute drive away normally. It took him 3 hours to get home that day, and he even left the office early.

I teared up at the father who walked 6 miles to pick up his kid😭 true love right there.

I was in Kennesaw Ga (ATL suburb) during Snowmageddon. I made it home safe, but so many I know left their cars and walked home. I lived near the interstate and the entire interstate looked like a parking lot on both sides. Wild stuff.

I lived north of Atlanta at the time and had to park at a laundry mat to walk home from school. It was a wild time.

Rural northern Illinois here. Early January 2014 we got so much snow it was over our mailbox. I was in high school at the time and we had 2-3 days off extra from winter break. Couple days after we went back, for three days the high was -30 giving us another 2-3 days off

I remember these snowstorms from northwest Tennessee! We got out of school for about two weeks - made really good friends with my neighbor that was also in the HS band program. I have very fond memories of it :) Great video!!!! Especially great music, on top of your usual quality editing and writing.

Great video! I feel like you’re one of the first people to talk about how the extreme car dependence of the south makes winter storms much worse there.

I was in elementary school when it hit. My bus was stuck at the top of my community for days. I wore sandals to school that day. Dad and I walked all the kids home that day.

My husband and I lived in Roswell Georgia at that time. The storm had been predicted for at least two days by several different weather outlets. My husband narrowly missed being stuck in this debacle, but because we had watched the weather and believed the forecasts, we were both safe and warm at home.

I remember this one so clearly as a Midwesterner who has Northern friends. It was a crazy situation honestly and its SO easy to rag on them for being taken out by such "little accumulation" but like, it was just the "perfect storm" (haha) that ended up in a horrible incident. Also you're so right, like im WAY more afraid of an ice storm than a snow storm as someone who's experienced both, but man.

Thank you for unlocking a core memory

thanks for covering this - it was a wild event to live through!

Oh man, I remember this. I was about 7 years old when this happened. I walked home from school with my mom, after she walked to our school to come get me and my brother. There was a semi truck that had slid on ice on one of the roads between my house and school, and it had blocked off traffic.

I love your uploads and I wait to watch them when I have enough time to dedicate my full concentration to them. Incredibly informative!

I was just thinking about your video where you explained that moisture from the corn crops affected the weather (the storm). Now here you are this afternoon in my feed. Thanks.

Dude I love your videos, they're sick. I wanted to let you know that I appreciate the amount of effort you put into them, and that I look forward to each video you post. You da best!

Great piece as always, dude - Always love your stuff!

What an experience to live through! Me and several colleagues were in a one bedroom apartment for several days. Thankfully a great friend lived in Dunwoody and she had all of us and her coworker there too. You were able to see the inherent goodness in people because total strangers were helping each other, including having them stay at their homes for several days. The stores like Target were housing people as well.

This video was so well done from literally the very first second i was hooked by the editing and great pacing

@laryanryan9170

Ай бұрын

He actually explained how and why this happened. No one else did that.

feel like this is gonna blow up yet another great video bro keep it up

I remember the 2009 ice storm in Kentucky. I was young, so i dont remember everything, but i remember how many people were without power for DAYS and the ice was so thick on everything. I remember when we finally got power restored, you could hear people cheering from inside their homes. Ice storms are no joke, especially in the south where we aren't as prepared for them.

@lunistylz587

3 ай бұрын

You guys just need better winter infrastructure, this year in January it dropped to -44 degrees here in Montana and power didn’t go out at all.

@emzykate

3 ай бұрын

@@lunistylz587 Sure, but I don't think it's fair to expect a Southern state to invest in as much winter weather infrastructure as a Northern one. Not to mention, like he stated in this video, the people in southern states can't really practice for this type of weather when we only get it once in a blue moon. Just like I don't expect Montana to be as prepared as Kentucky when it comes to tornadoes, I don't think it makes much sense in this scenario to expect Kentucky to be as prepared for a winter storm as Montana might be :)

I was down there making a delivery at the time and was stuck in their traffic. I had enough fuel to keep my truck running for days and wasn’t worried. I keep a case of MRE’s and water bottles under my bunk for emergencies. I let 2 families join me in my truck to keep warm. I let their kids play video games on my Xbox to keep them busy. I handed out some of the spare food and water to folks in nearby cars who had enough fuel to idle for the night. While it was a horror for some people, I saw it as a time of showing how compassionate a majority of the population is helping out one another. I saw other truckers like myself and people in their homes nearby helping. To the Jaxsons and the Broxsons ( no idea if I spelled that right) I hope y’all are doing well and was happy to have you in my little mobile paradise!

I was five years old when this event occurred, all I have are faint memories of playing in the snow at my grandparents house, but nevertheless this was a very interesting event, great video!

This is great, learning about different weather events from the past is very interesting, and I want to keep learning more about these events. So keep up the video's and great work.

Very well done, I was not really aware about this event (writing from Quebec, Canada).

fantastic video...keep em coming...big fan here!

Perfect timing, wanted a new weatherbox and here it is!

Would love to see one of these on the 2021 Texas Snowpocalypse! Good stuff as always

EVERYtime I watch your channel, I am rewarded. Gracias! When I have to drive in snow, which I avoid here in Northern Nevada, it's other drivers who give me concern because they seem to believe they can drive at normal speed, because they have 4WD/AWD.

you should do a video over the mississippi flood of 1993, the main cause was a volcanic eruption causing severe rain. Another fact to mention was the man who charged with causing a catastrophe by breaking a flood wall during the 1993 flood, Love your videos !!

@knockeledup

3 ай бұрын

I remember that flood. It turned our ditches into mini pools. I was only 7 so I could go swimming in them!

As a synth musician and enthusiast, I love the "synth model" display sequence at the very beginning of this great video. Nice touch!

This has been a treat of a video.

This is absolutely superb. Your videos are fantastic. Could you do a video on the winter winter of 2019? Another so called polar vortex incident!

i respect your empathy for folks who were trapped in the snow storm in atlanta in specific and the deep south in general. and i love the way you contextualized how different factors contributed to the chaos of this event

Thank you for bringing Snowmageddon back! I was at school this day until my dad picked me up at 6. We ended up helping people stranded in a school bus, then staying at my friends house. It was memorable day that’s for sure. Your concluding statement is accurate to how we thought the event would go. We weren’t going nowhere the next ice event that’s for certain…

This last snow/ice episode this past January 2024, I stayed home all week. Didn’t remotely consider going out. Birmingham, AL bought a fleet of Humvees after the Blizzard of 1993. Ten years later, the fleet was sold for scrap because they were never used again & they’d become scrap.

The SSW Reminds me of the 2009/2010 or 2013 or 2018 Snowstorms in UK/ Europe, very cold, very snowy, and schools closed. 2018 was the worst imo with a deep low mixing with cold air and dump a lot of snow!

@axisboss1654

3 ай бұрын

Although places like East Germany have the infrastructure to deal with snow because it is a much more regular occurrence.

I’m starting to see you more in my algorithm and I’m all here for it. I thought you were a newer channel that started its blow up but I see you been grinding for a while. Don’t sub to many channels anymore but you deserve many more than just me and 72,000 people. If you uploaded even just once a week you’d blow up fast big dog

Now this is the content I am subscribed for. :)

This story was a lot more interesting than any tornado story I've ever heard. Absolutely amazing video

I just love that keyboard intro ❤❤❤❤ this one is my favorite of them so far.

I LOVE the highlighting of key phrases and sounds when they’re said, it makes me feel like I'm really learning information rather than just watching it

@snowtigerko

3 ай бұрын

2:15 "northern 🤖 annual 📟 mode 📲"

I was a freshman in HS when this happened. I remember our bus got stuck in the snow about 4 miles away from our neighborhood where the majority of all of us lived. We werent alowed off the bus to walk back home after it was stuck. On our short drive back home we saw many abandoned cars on the short drive back home. My mom was the first one to us she took responsibility to let the majority of us off the bus. I also remember my friend walking home from school with just jeans and a tshirt on. about 6 miles away. Shoutout to any who was in North Paulding during this time. lol

I remember this in elementary school. So surreal looking back at it.

this is an amazing video as always by you. very much appreciate all that goes into these videos, especially the research. all of this is so interesting and my heart goes out to those that were affected. Its so freaking crazy, but also interesting all at the same time. If I can make a suggestion as well, could you do a video of the Salt Lake City F2 please? I was born a couple years after it and never heard anything about it. And with tornados being so rare here, I'm very curious how it was able to form! Tis just a suggestion though if you do see this. Anyway amazing video and content in general honestly. Thank you for your great work!

You should definitely talk about the snow storms that hit the mid-Atlantic states in Jan 2022. I remember this time all too well as it was news for over a week here in Richmond. I-95 was backed up for days and even Tim Kaine was stuck on I-95 for 27 hours trying to head to DC.

Nice presentation as always. I went into work that morning near I-285 northwest of Atlanta, figuring I could get out by late morning and be home before things got bad. I figured wrong. I got stuck in the rush of vehicles on the roads as everything closed up and people scrambled to get home or get their kids. What was normally a half hour drive to my house became almost eight hours. Even slight hills became impassible due to just enough ice to prevent traction. I tried several different routes home, and finally made it about 8pm. Somehow I avoided any collisions, but there were several near misses as cars slid. When I was forecasting on local tv back in Dayton, I was often frustrated by my lack of skill at predicting snow amounts. Some things never change, I guess. :-) At least I don't have to worry about that here in Miami!

I will never forget this day. I was a delivery driver and was in Newnan making a delivery (about an hour southwest of downtown Atlanta) and on the way back to the store it started snowing and I could see the outbound traffic snarling up. I got back to the shop at about 11:30 and my boss made us wait until 1pm to leave. It took me until 6 pm to make what would normally be a 45 minute drive.

I would really like to see a video on the December 10-11 2021 tornado outbreak. one of my favorites to read about!

Great job!

I drove for a hospital system at the time. Now I was raised in Ontario for years, and well acclimated to the snow. It snows every year. I ski’d to work. The trucks had snow tyres and chains. From the transportation director, if we couldn’t get in, they’d send out a bus for us. If you don’t have a good reason to be on the roads, don’t. Atlanta has a transit problem, many southern cities do, and couldn’t keep up with demand. Snowmageddon was awesome, one of the few good winters I can recall.

Major props for knowing how to correctly pronounce the abbreviation for Oklahoma City! Commercial airline pilots especially are notorious for saying "Oak City." Love your videos! Keep it up!

@stellviahohenheim

2 ай бұрын

nobody cares

Your videos rock!

your voice sounds like your on the news it’s so good

New @weatherbox video about Atlanta snowmageddon while I’m on a Delta flight, drinking a Coca Cola, heading home to Atlanta? Hell yeah perfect timing. I remember I lived in the panhandle Florida while this went down. We were out of school for two weeks while temperatures dropped below 20F and stayed like that for a couple days. Northern part of my county got hit with snow mix, and Pensacola was also hit with snow where the main bridge crossing the bay was shut down. I remember waking up to a mere 6F at 7AM one morning. All the locals remember that storm. Was fun though

This event was such a surreal and awesome memory for me. I was at ksu which is right off I-75 so there were tons of cars stuck. We helped move as many as possible and I have lots of pictures of the roads full of cars. The coolest thing though was being able to walk back and forth and stand in the middle of I-75. Since the road was closed where I was there were no cars and I took the once in a life time chance to just stand in the middle of the interstate (without having a deathwish). I love snow so I loved the whole thing.

That takes me back! I was in elementary school back then. I got picked up by my parents, but we got stuck going up a hill miles from home, right behind a school bus. We had to ditch and walk 2 miles home with a bunch of neighborhood kids all huddled together in a big group.

i love this channel ☁️

I live in Pittsburgh and I was very young but I rember this storm very clearly and how power was out for days

Babe wake up weatherbox uploaded a snow episode Edit: JESUS CHRIST THAT INTRO MUSIC SLAPS

Awesome video I love your channel! You should do a video on MLK Day 2022 snowstorm in NE Ohio. That was literally the first time where I’ve seen a snowstorm so bad it shut down 90% of businesses that day. And this coming from Ohio which is usually a state that still keeps most things open in a clipper system

I live on a hill in the mid South and I'm originally from western Colorado. It's amazing how different the snow experience was. The town had almost zero means to to deal with snow or ice (we had a huge ice storm our first winter). So we learned to just stay put on our street and watch everyone else get stuck. At first we had tire chains, but we eventually got rid of those and got a generator instead. Ironically, we haven't lost electricity in the winter since.

Thank you for explaining the reasons why how unprepared southerners are for dealing with snowy/icy conditions. Northerners don't understand how you need opportunities to practice in dealing with them. Those seldom happen. They also have no concept of the fact that there are places in the south, esp along the Gulf coast, you seldom ever reach freezing. I grew up in one of those areas. But on the flip side, I figured out really quick how to shut them down. Ask then how well they handle 100+ degree summers. Most of them can't. Depending on where up north they are, 80-90 degrees is nearly unbearable.

@csc7225

Ай бұрын

Exactly. I worked at the AL State Capitol for a number of years. It was late May and a tour group from Michigan was about 10 minutes late for their tour. They apologized profusely, saying they had to trudge up a hill (actually a slight incline) from MLK's church and it was so hot they just couldn't go very fast. It was 78 degrees outside and we tried so hard not to laugh. They wouldn't have survived our state in August and early September. Conversely, though, I'd just about die having to live through a winter in the north... it wouldn't matter how many layers I could pile on!

I remember this. I was working a retail job at the time and distinctly remember being called in because so many people called out that morning. It was my first time driving on such icy roads.

Here in mid-Appalachia we went to bed, taking the usual precautions with the water system (hydrants shut, water dripping in the bunkhouse).... Woke up to -9 degrees with a 20mph+ NW wind. went to brush teeth and wash face and the water gave out...... Damn. Turns out that the water system that was shared by an adjacent home had frozen and the entire system became incapacitated. We were without running water until April. I had to unfreeze the line with a propane torch near the "adjacent home" that had not properly buried the waterlines that supplied our homes from the spring cistern. We also had to repair the burst waterline from the submersible pump to the bladder-tank, as the ice blockage had caused the sub-pump to burst the waterline after the ice-blockage created a demand on the pump. We've obviously hardened the system now, so that the same incident will never recure.......

Wow never knew there was a video about this, sister convinced my mom to give us the day off , I remember people being stuck in their cars and schools for a day. Remember that the whole county for Atlanta had only one salt truck which wasn’t even ready for the event.

I remember this as a kid. I was a good but north of the city and lived pretty close to school. Both of my parents worked from home, and my school let us out earlier in the day. I was just having a good time cause we rarely got snow like that, but I remember seeing the pictures and hearing the stories of the “Snow Angels” in the days following

Even as a flinty Granite Stater, snow/ice on untreated roads wreaks havoc on transportation, north and south. When I lived in VA for a few years, I found it was often the over-reaction to winter weather that caused more headaches than the winter storms themselves, but there certainly are times, like Atlanta in 2014, which really were bad.

I remember this so vividly!

This video was great as someone who experienced it, but can you talk about the winter storm in like 2011(?) that dumped 10+ inches on Atlanta? Basically everything was shut down for a week+. My street (with very steep hills going both directions, my house at the very bottom), was absolutely crammed full of abandoned cars for at least 5 days. This was before we had as many snow plows/salt trucks than even in 2014. The plows and trucks took at least a week to get to our street in Duluth. Also, I think less than a month later we got ANOTHER 4 inches or so?? It was nuts. Missed almost 2 weeks of school I think

Babe wake up. Weatherbox dropped a new video.

Very good overview and explanation of what actually happened!! 👏 I'd add that most all of GDOT "snow equipment/ plows" are only used in the mereo Atlanta area of roughly 6M population. If winter wx is north or south, all those resources have to move to effected areas, leaving ATL with even fewer. I do recall the next year a HUGE INVESTMENT of more salt and brine trucks, as well as plows, even placing many north of Atlanta outside the suburbs. I live in Rome, 60 miles north of Atlanta and while much smaller, we still had the same problems, kids sleeping in schools, but we had secretly busses wreck and in ditches bc we're in the foothills of the Appalachian mtns.