Shawn Reynolds of The Weather Channel took several of TWC producer Stephen Neslage's photos and put them into one montage. Here clockwise, we see ATL gridlock, (some stopped for over 10 hours), abandoned cars littering the Atlanta highways, and people sleeping in various grocery store aisles. Shawn is at @WCL_Shawn and Stephen is at @StephenNeslage. The AJC reports that the governor has sent National Guard humvees to try and rescue the students still on buses trapped in the traffic, and others to bring food and water to students over-nighting in schools.
The UK Telegraph reports,
"Thousands of commuters were trapped in cars overnight on highways in the greater Atlanta area, hundreds of students remained inside dozens of schools Wednesday morning and at least 50 children spent the night on school buses because of an ice storm that is still gripping the deepest parts of the South. Residents ran out of medicine, a baby was born to a stranded mother and pleas for help flooded Twitter and Facebook as a region that rarely deals with ice and snow came to a screeching halt during a rare meteorological event that was still icing points this morning as far south as Brownsville, Tex."
It was the icing, the speed with which the storm came, and the volume of traffic that made things worse than simply the flakes that fell. There are some students still on buses that left school yesterday as the snow began that became swamped in traffic and snarled to a halt overnight on the highway. The National Guard was sent to try and move the buses and rescue the students still trapped aboard, and also to bring food and water to schools with hordes of students that sheltered-in-place. Nearly 4,000 students remain sheltered at their schools in Alabama, according to Gov. Robert Bentley.
Rare, snow, ice shock Deep South
[Governor] "Deal declared a state of emergency for the entire state late Tuesday afternoon and pleaded for residents, many unaccustomed to coping with snowy driving conditions, to stay off the roads. "I know many people are trying desperately to pick up their children or simply to get home, and I hope they can get to safe, warm stopping point soon," Deal said. "Once at your destination, if at all possible, please stay off the roads until conditions improve."
Below is a graphic showing how fast Atlanta traffic went from cruising comfortably to total paralyzed gridlock
How rare is rare? We read that Alaska was warmer than Georgia for part of this week. We read of snowmageddon/snowpocalypse in 2011, another rare weather year. But 2012 produced weird and unusual weather, as did 2013, and now again in 2014. So, is rare the new normal?
Dec. 2013: Rare December Snow Blankets Jerusalem (PHOTOS) - weather.com
Jan. 2014: What are snow rollers? Weird weather phenomenon sweeps Midwest
Oct. 2013: Weird weather: Fogged-in Boulder sees 1.4 inches fall after rare 'thundersnow'
Here is a more detailed report of the snow bales/snow rollers
Ohio Problems @OhioProbz Follow
Only in Ohio do we experience this rare phenomenon called Snow Rollers
They are called snow rollers and they look like something out of a Stephen King travel guide to the Arctic Circle -- weird, cylindrical snow formations created in the middle of nowhere without the benefit of human touch. And the sight of them provides more evidence of the strange winter weather that’s sweeping the country, threatening snow in the Sun Belt, thrusting Minnesota temperatures even further below zero than usual and menacing the Super Bowl during its own rare appearance in foul-weather country. Even the National Weather Service waxes just a little poetic when describing the eerie shapes, which have cropped up in recent days in pristine fields in Ohio and Pennsylvania. (And let’s not even talk about the breathless descriptions of television newscasters.)
Last January the NY Times reported on how weather around the world is growing stranger and weirder.
Heat, Flood or Icy Cold, Extreme Weather Rages Worldwide
"Each year we have extreme weather, but it’s unusual to have so many extreme events around the world at once,” said Omar Baddour, chief of the data management applications division at the World Meteorological Organization, in Geneva. “The heat wave in Australia; the flooding in the U.K., and most recently the flooding and extensive snowstorm in the Middle East — it’s already a big year in terms of extreme weather calamity.”Such events are increasing in intensity as well as frequency, Mr. Baddour said, a sign that climate change is not just about rising temperatures, but also about intense, unpleasant, anomalous weather of all kinds."
Intense unpleasant weather...you could say that. It is predicted to only get worse. No, Weather Underground's Dr. Jeff Masters didn't predict this. Nor The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore. nor your local weather man. God did.
During the Tribulation, no wind will blow. Drought will occur. Water will be made into poison, and/or blood. One hundred pound hail will fall, dwarfing the largest hail that has fallen so far, large as it was. (18 inches, Nebraska). The heat waves will be so intense men will burn just by stepping outside.
Revelation 16:9 says
The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. 9They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.
If you are a fan of global warming, just know that when the sun is heated seven times hotter (Isaiah 30:26) and men are scorched by it, (Rev 16:9) the ice caps will melt. The little polar bear Al Gore set upon the ice floe all forlorn, will drown. For real this time. The released water from the ice caps will swamp low lying cities and they too will drown. All this weather craziness will only continue to get worse. It will not re-set. It will not return to weather of old. It has all been inexorably running down to the moment when nothing about the weather will work at the end of time, since the moment Adam and Eve sinned in the garden and God cursed the air and the ground (Genesis 3:17-19, Romans 8:20-22).
Rare IS the new normal, but if you want to escape all these things, be a part of the Church when Christ comes. His global bride will be whisked to heaven to enjoy a rewards ceremony called the Bema Seat, and those left behind will see these rare and horrible weather things happen for which they will have no words to describe.
How does one become part of the Bride of Christ? Recognize you are a sinner; doing, saying, and thinking things that are at enmity against Christ. Be repentant of them, and ask His forgiveness. Because He took God's wrath on the cross for your sins, once you're forgiven, God's wrath will be set aside, having been atoned for and endured by Jesus. God exhausted His wrath upon His Son, so you can be saved from it! You will be part of the group of believers taken up to heaven before all these horrific things come to pass in an event known as the rapture.
The alternative is to cling to your sins, and remain on an increasingly destroyed earth, as God UNdoes His handiwork in a horrific UNcreation. By the end, there won't even be a sky to look at. (Revelation 6:14).
God is the powerful Creator. He made the world and He will unmake the world. (2 Peter 3:10). Please don't be on it when He does. These weather events are His warnings to us on an increasingly rebellious world. Heed the warnings and repent.
"and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15).