Vince_Condella's Blog

It's human nature to assign blame to all events that don't match our preferred outcome.  Yesterday's icy evening rush hour is a perfect example.  Today many people want to figure out who to blame for all of the accidents.  Why weren't the salt trucks out there sooner?  Why weren't we warned of this impending doom?

The convective snow showers were a fluke.  As I explained in yesterday's blog, they weren't unusual or rare.  Heck, they weren't even a surprise.  I can only speak for my forecast from Sunday night, but it included scattered snow showers and flurries for Monday.  These are quite common events in November.

The fluke part of the deal was the timing.  Striking the main traffic area right at the heart of the evening commute home was a cruel twist by nature.  The salters did their best to get where they needed to go, but often they were trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic just like everybody else.  And with the widely scattered nature of these snow showers, there was no way salt trucks could get to the spots where they were needed before the snow showers hit.

The particular heavy snow shower that caused all of the problems became intense over southern Sheboygan county before 4 p.m., then steadily crept south through Ozaukee and Washington counties during the next hour.  It arrived at our Brown Deer studio on the north side of Milwaukee County just as we began our 5 p.m. newscast, and the rest is history.

Another part of the equation is the air temperature, and that remained below freezing throughout the late afternoon.  Pavement temperatures were perfectly suited to create "black ice", the sheets of clear ice that allow the black pavement to show.

Oh yeah, and then there is the critical part of the equation.  Many people don't slow down.  And those that do drive safely and slow to a proper speed are often plowed into by those travelling too fast.

One of our regular bloggers, FOX 6 Fan, said it best in his comment to my blog yesterday:  sometimes we just have to slow down.  Conditions aren't always going to be perfect for us.  And even though it may be difficult for many people, we need to adjust and go with the flow - even if the flow is slower than we would prefer.