Tropical storm looms in Gulf; snowstorm builds in Rockies

I placed this article here because of it's relationship to the government shutstorm.
(Thank you John Stewart for the Shutstorm name.)

A hurricane watch for the Gulf Coast and an early season snowstorm in the Rockies and Plains have broken the calm of a relatively quiet period of weather across the country.

In anticipation, the White House said it would recall employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency who have been placed on furlough because of the federal government shutdown.

CBC Radio is reporting that these FEMA as well as US weather Service employees are being recalled but there is some question as to weather they are being paid.

This is the only news report that I found that mentioned the recall of these workers.

I envy anyone dealing with the blizzard right now. It's been a stiflingly hot summer here in FL, and fall so far isn't much better Hopefully there isn't too much to worry about from it, I know the damage too much snow too fast can do.


Tropical Storm Karen, however...Don't worry about it. It's center of circulation is a good ways from convection (a "naked" storm, so to speak right now) That does not bode well for storms, it makes it very difficult to maintain or gain strength. In short, TS Karen is very sickly, both visually, and structurally.

Edit: The Wunderground page for Karen:
www.wunderground.com...

Winds are 40 MPH (peaked at 60 or 65 the other day) and pressure's up to 1008. Also, there are no Hurricane warnings or watches up, they were discontinued yesterday. TS warnings & watches are up, but I'm willing to bet they may be dropped, too. Karen's not far from a Tropical Depression. All she's likely to end up being at landfall is an oversized afternoon summer storm.

reply to post by Beartracker16


Well of course.

President Obama never wanted to shut down FEMA or the National Weather Service in the first place. Thank John Boehner and his Tea-Party House majority for that.

I'm glad the President is responding as he normally would, despite the shutdown.

reply to post by Nyiah


Here you go Nyiah, envy away
Flew into town last night after a week out of town for training. Flight barely made it in, was delayed in Denver for over an hour while they tried to balance the scale between luggage and extra fuel for a "just in case" scenario. Mobile staircase for debarking was frozen to the ground and battery was dead upon our arrival. 1,000's of broken trees, huge limbs littering the roads making them almost impassible. Worst early storm I've seen in 15 years....
A friend who lives at the base of our nearby mountain is reporting 32" of accumulation, has to be much higher at the top of the mountain where a co-worker of mine lives.
Looks like it has now passed and we can begin the cleanup.
Can't really see too much from the photo, maybe I'll get out later and take a few more.

reply to post by sageturkey


Whoa, that's more accumulation than I thought! And a whole lot colder than I realized if the stairs were frozen, that's dang cold.
And if you do take photos, I'm looking forward to it Maybe a thread in Fragile Earth for you to share your pictures? I know the folks in there would love it

reply to post by Nyiah


It's melting quickly, so that's a good thing!
One more for ya...
And that's after about 15 minutes of brushing off the right side