Fred and Valerie

A powerful storm, said by many to have been a microburst, hit Charlottesville on Thursday, June 24th, just before 5:00 pm. We were still at work at the time and it was quite a scary experience.

I managed to shoot some video with my phone during the last part of the storm, which was quite a bit less severe than the initial impact.

The storm caused extensive damage, including downing many trees and leaving over 40,000 residents without power.

When we went to work the next morning, most of the University of Virginia was still without power, meaning there was little to do except to walk around and take photos of the damage.

• March: 2010 Virginia Festival of the Book
• April: Virginia/Georgia Tech Baseball
• April/May: Sonja and Sonny’s Wedding
• May: Vermont Road Trip
• June: Cincinnati Reds/Washington Nationals Baseball
• June: Virginia/St. John’s Baseball

The 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics are over. Despite starting with a lackluster opening ceremony amidst the grief over the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, the Games themselves proved to be spectacular in many respects.

Early on, the story of these Olympics was when, not if, Canada would win their first gold medal as a host country. Having failed to win any gold medals during the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics and 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, Canada was focused more than ever on standing atop the medal podium. Alexandre Bilodeau led things off for the Canadians with a gold in the Men’s Moguls event and several other Canadians followed so that Canada actually finished the Olympics with the most gold medals of any country.

While Canada finished first in gold medals, the United States finished with the most overall with 37 medals, breaking the previous Winter Olympics record set by Germany at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. And Germany was close behind in second place with 30 medals.

There were several big stories being played in the US media about the US Olympic Team leading up to the Games. Among them were Lindsey Vonn’s pursuit of Olympic gold following back-to-back World Cup championships, Bode Miller’s attempt at Olympic redemption following a controversy-filled 2006 Olympics, and several others.

However, the major stories after the Games included Apolo Ohno becoming the most decorated American Winter Olympic athlete by winning a silver and two bronze medals for a total of eight, the US Men’s Hockey team winning silver after scoring a goal with just 24.4 seconds left to send the final game against Canada to overtime, Johnny Spillane winning the first ever US medal (silver) in the normal hill Nordic Combined, which he followed up with a second silver medal in the large hill Nordic Combined, and another silver medal in the team Nordic Combined.

Having been a fan of the Olympic Games for quite some time, it’s great to see the US finally being truly competitive at the Olympic Winter Games. The US has always been competitive at the more-overall-medals-available Olympic Summer Games, not having fewer than 90 total medals since Rome in 1960 (excluding the 1980 Moscow boycott). However, before 2002, the highest total number of medals for a US Winter Olympic team was 13 in 1998 at Nagano and 1994 at Lillehammer. But when the US was host in 2002 at Salt Lake City, they won 34 medals and then they followed that up with 25 medals in 2006 at Turin. Now, with 37 medals, there’s no doubt the US is on the Winter Olympics map, which is nice for a fan like me who prefers many of the sports of the Winter Olympics.

Now the Winter Olympic torch is passed from Vancouver to Sochi, Russia. If you’ve never heard of the city, fear not. It’s 2006 estimated population was a mere 395,012. Surprisingly, Sochi beat out the more familiar Pyeongchang, South Korea and Salzburg, Austria despite not having any world-class level athletic facilities as recently as 2008. The Russian Federation certainly has its work cut out for it and the $12 billion investment package might be just the beginning of what is necessary to create Olympic-caliber venues. Only time will tell.

Yesterday, last night, and today, we were supposed to receive upwards of 8–12 inches of snow as of yesterday morning’s weather forecast.

The snow was supposed to start at 10 am, but looking at the radar, that didn’t seem like it was going to happen, so we went to work and waited for the snow to start. We waited. And we waited. And we waited some more.

By the time 4:30 rolled around, it was time to go home, regardless of snow… or not. The snow did begin falling right around 4:30 and we had a snow-filled drive home, but the roads were perfectly fine, so it was no big deal.

We got home, did the usual stuff, and waited for the snow to show up. By bedtime, the snow was still not falling as promised. In fact, by that time, the forecast had already been updated a second time for the day from 8-12 inches to 3-6 inches, to 1-3 inches.

When we woke up this morning, there was about 2 inches of new snow on the ground, but the worst part was the roads. Apparently, the high winds were causing a lot of drifting snow from this past weekend’s storm to cover more than the actual falling snow did. With that, road conditions were pretty bad, so we stayed home.

One of the smallest snowfalls we’ve had this year and yet it kept us home when other, more intense snowfalls didn’t.

There’s a 100% chance of snow tomorrow and tomorrow night.

With each update to the forecast, the predicted accumulation grows. The latest forecast has us at 5 to 9 inches of snow just for Tuesday. The snow is supposed to continue until approximately noon on Wednesday, though no accumulation forecast exists for that far out.

The Winter Storm Warning says a total of 5 to 10 inches of snow, but it seems we may end up with more than that if the storm does hang around until mid-Wednesday. With most of the snow we got this past weekend still on the ground, we could end up with a total of two feet on the ground, much like it was after the mid-December storm.

No matter what, it seems like we will once again escape the brunt of the storm as the DC area is predicted to get 10 to 20 inches of snow. With one city in Maryland reporting 40 inches of snow from this past weekend’s storm, this latest storm could cause massive issues for that area.

Despite the predictions for the imminent doom of our area, we “only” had 12 inches of snow from the most recent storm. The D.C. and Baltimore areas got pummeled, but we were mostly spared. Albemarle County has a lot of customers without power due to the increased amounts of ice and wet snow that brought down trees and power lines, but Augusta County mostly seems to have survived just fine.

Now we have another storm on the way for Tuesday, though the forecasters are still unsure of the severity. Given how this last storm went, they’ll probably predict just a couple of inches and we’ll end up with a couple of feet of snow. Only time will tell…

It’s already been an extraordinary Winter for snowfall and now there’s more on the way. The snow season started with an 8-inch snowfall that’s typically a lot for our area. Soon thereafter, we got a big sign of things to come with 29 inches of snow a week before Christmas. That snowfall shattered previous records for snow in December and stayed on the ground well into the new year. But, before the new year was able to come, another round of snow and ice hit the area on Christmas Day.

We’re well into 2010 and the snow has not stopped. We usually get a couple of small snowfalls of 1-2 inches and maybe one “large” snowfall of about 6 inches. That’s it. But after the 37+ inches in December, we had a couple of small 1-2 inch snowfalls before an 8+ inch snowfall just last weekend. Then, on Tuesday night, we got another 3-4 inches of snow. All told, we’ve probably only had one or two days since mid-December where we could actually see the ground.

As if the snow we’ve already had wasn’t enough, there is now a major storm system heading our way. The snow is supposed to start by daybreak tomorrow and won’t stop until sometime Saturday. The official Winter Storm Warning is predicting “storm total accumulations of 20 to 28 inches [of snow].” Locally, the predictions are 7 to 11 inches of snow tomorrow and 10 to 14 inches of snow tomorrow night. That’s 17 to 25 inches, with no prediction yet made for Saturday. We could quickly and easily get into the 2-1/2 foot (or higher!) range.

In anticipation of the impending snow storm, U.Va. has already closed for tomorrow. Usually, U.Va. doesn’t close for snow and their closing for the December storm was the first time I can recall that they’ve closed in the 10+ years I’ve lived in Virginia. Closing preemptively is something I’ve never seen them do.

With temperatures staying below freezing for quite some time, this snow will stay on the ground for a long time, just like the December storm’s snow. In addition, there are already forecasts of snow on Monday and/or Tuesday.

So, I ask the question again. When did we move to Minnesota?

Beyond true!

It’s been a crazy week for celebrity deaths…

• Ed McMahon: March 6, 1923 – June 23, 2009
• Farrah Fawcett: February 2, 1947 – June 25, 2009
• Michael Jackson: August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009
• Gale Storm: April 5, 1922 – June 27, 2009
• Billy Mays: July 20, 1958 – June 28, 2009
• Fred Travalena: October 6, 1942 – June 28, 2009

I’m a touch bitter about the Auburn women’s basketball team getting knocked off by Rutgers last night, but I don’t think I’d be the only one who found the following just flat out crazy. Where else, in a tournament setting, can you find such blatant disregard for seeding? The upsets are listed in bold.

FIRST ROUND
#11 Georgia vs. #6 Arizona State (Duluth, GA): 53 miles vs. 1,868 miles

#15 Lehigh vs. #2 Auburn (Piscataway, NJ): 58 miles vs. 947 miles

#13 Montana vs. #4 Pittsburgh (Seattle, WA): 478 miles vs. 2,526 miles

#12 Gonzaga vs. #5 Xavier (Seattle, WA): 281 miles vs. 2,399 miles

#10 San Diego St. vs. #7 DePaul (SDSU Home Court; San Diego, CA): 0 miles vs. 2,077 miles

#9 Temple vs. #8 Florida (Storrs, CT): 233 miles vs. 1,139 miles

#15 Evansville vs. #2 Texas A&M (South Bend, IN): 321 miles vs. 1,210 miles

#10 TCU vs. #7 South Dakota St. (Lubbock, TX): 314 miles vs. 1,070 miles

Obviously, it doesn’t matter too much with some of the First Round games, particularly games like #15 Lehigh against #2 Auburn. But, when you have #9 Michigan St. playing, literally, at home in East Lansing, MI and #8 Iowa playing in their home arena in Iowa City, IA and #6 LSU playing in their home arena in Baton Rouge, LA, it makes you wonder why a #2 seed like Auburn has to go all the way to New Jersey or a #4 like Pittsburgh has to go all the way to Seattle or a #2 like Texas A&M has to go to South Bend, IN instead of Lubbock, TX, like #10 TCU.

And things get worse in the Second Round with most of the lower seeds out of the tournament.

SECOND ROUND
#5 Kansas St. vs. #4 Vanderbilt (Albuquerque, NM): 727 miles vs. 1,220 miles

#12 Gonzaga vs. #4 Pittsburgh (Seattle, WA): 281 miles vs. 2,526 miles

#7 Rutgers vs. #2 Auburn (Rutgers Home Court; Piscataway, NJ): 0 miles vs. 947 miles

#10 San Diego St. vs. #2 Stanford (SDSU Home Court; San Diego, CA): 0 miles vs. 477 miles

#10 Minnesota vs. #2 Texas A&M (South Bend, IN): 501 miles vs. 1,210 miles

#9 Michigan St. vs. #1 Duke (MSU Home Court; East Lansing, MI): 0 miles vs. 740 miles

#12 Ball St. vs. #4 Iowa St. (Bowling Green, KY): 285 miles vs. 725 miles

#6 LSU vs. #3 Louisville (LSU Home Court; Baton Rouge, LA): 0 miles vs. 759 miles

I don’t think it’s necessary to ensure that the higher seed always plays closer to home, but these examples are just flat out ridiculous. #1 Duke had gone 11 straight seasons of winning their first two games in the NCAA tournament and now, because the tournament committee saw fit to send a #1 seed to the home court of a potential opponent, they’re out of the tournament. A #1 seed playing a true away game?!?!?!?!?! If it wasn’t for real, I’d think it was a joke.

Four true home court games for the lower seeds in the second round of the women’s NCAA tournament is stupid. Maybe next year they should all just reject NCAA bids and go with the NIT where the higher seed always has a home game.