PSA: severe weather forecasted for Monday 8/7

[Anonymous]

There wasn’t much of anything where we are in moco. Lots of barking but no bites

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe OPM shut down the government at 3pm for that. Well, no I can believe it.

Again, you're a moron.

Oh, did you have a crazy storm at 3pm? 4 pm? 5pm? I think we all know who the morons are. Did you make this call for OPM or something? I hope you get fired.

NP. If they'd closed government offices at 3 p.m. because a crazy storm was expected at 3 p.m., THEN I'd be expecting to see someone fired for it. The whole point of closing before you think the storm is going to hit is so people have ample time to commute home.

As for everyone who's outraged that preparations were taken that, in retrospect, did not turn out to be needed for most of the area, that seems like a win? Definitely better than the reverse. Feel free to stay at your office until exactly when the weather it supposed to get bad the next time the National Weather Service says conditions are ripe for a tornado; was anyone actually FORCED to go home today instead of staying at the office working?

[Anonymous]

Pretty nasty storm now in Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Heavy rain in NW DC. There is a flood warning for DC, Arlington and other adjacent areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe OPM shut down the government at 3pm for that. Well, no I can believe it.

Again, you're a moron.

Oh, did you have a crazy storm at 3pm? 4 pm? 5pm? I think we all know who the morons are. Did you make this call for OPM or something? I hope you get fired.

NP. If they'd closed government offices at 3 p.m. because a crazy storm was expected at 3 p.m., THEN I'd be expecting to see someone fired for it. The whole point of closing before you think the storm is going to hit is so people have ample time to commute home.

As for everyone who's outraged that preparations were taken that, in retrospect, did not turn out to be needed for most of the area, that seems like a win? Definitely better than the reverse. Feel free to stay at your office until exactly when the weather it supposed to get bad the next time the National Weather Service says conditions are ripe for a tornado; was anyone actually FORCED to go home today instead of staying at the office working?

Right. I was teleworking but frankly I was glad they got people off the road so DH wasnt sitting on the beltway when the storm came through. And inevitably whenever OPM makes a call like this, it ends up being not as bad as predicted, so yay! Our neighborhood was a mess two weeks ago and so glad we didn’t lose power this time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe OPM shut down the government at 3pm for that. Well, no I can believe it.

Again, you're a moron.

Oh, did you have a crazy storm at 3pm? 4 pm? 5pm? I think we all know who the morons are. Did you make this call for OPM or something? I hope you get fired.

NP. If they'd closed government offices at 3 p.m. because a crazy storm was expected at 3 p.m., THEN I'd be expecting to see someone fired for it. The whole point of closing before you think the storm is going to hit is so people have ample time to commute home.

As for everyone who's outraged that preparations were taken that, in retrospect, did not turn out to be needed for most of the area, that seems like a win? Definitely better than the reverse. Feel free to stay at your office until exactly when the weather it supposed to get bad the next time the National Weather Service says conditions are ripe for a tornado; was anyone actually FORCED to go home today instead of staying at the office working?

My DH, who is a contractor and works in a fed office, was FORCED to go home. He had planned to stay at work and wait out the storm. A senior government manager walked around the room and told everyone to leave. Because he's a contractor, he had to take PTO since he didn't work his 8 hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe OPM shut down the government at 3pm for that. Well, no I can believe it.

Again, you're a moron.

Oh, did you have a crazy storm at 3pm? 4 pm? 5pm? I think we all know who the morons are. Did you make this call for OPM or something? I hope you get fired.

NP. If they'd closed government offices at 3 p.m. because a crazy storm was expected at 3 p.m., THEN I'd be expecting to see someone fired for it. The whole point of closing before you think the storm is going to hit is so people have ample time to commute home.

As for everyone who's outraged that preparations were taken that, in retrospect, did not turn out to be needed for most of the area, that seems like a win? Definitely better than the reverse. Feel free to stay at your office until exactly when the weather it supposed to get bad the next time the National Weather Service says conditions are ripe for a tornado; was anyone actually FORCED to go home today instead of staying at the office working?

My DH, who is a contractor and works in a fed office, was FORCED to go home. He had planned to stay at work and wait out the storm. A senior government manager walked around the room and told everyone to leave. Because he's a contractor, he had to take PTO since he didn't work his 8 hours.

As a former contractor who had to take leave during snowmaggedon, I get it. I wish there was a certain amount of weather leave baked into the government contracts.

But I am willing to give OPM some slack here because the forecast was pretty dire and we don’t even know what they were being told behind the scenes by the NWS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe OPM shut down the government at 3pm for that. Well, no I can believe it.

Ok, well, my neighbor had her house cut in half by a tree a week ago. I’m going to continue to take precautions when 70 mph winds come through.

Are you going into every single weather post to post this? Yes, we know about the house in Arlington that was cut in half last week. Give it a rest. This was nothing near that. Go find some more houses to take pictures of and submit to Arlnow. Oh wait, there aren't any.

This is the first time I’ve posted this and I live in Kensington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Big big big dud

That is like… the best case scenario. Would you prefer to right now have no AC in your powerless home while all the food in your fridge and freezer goes bad and you try to find somewhere to charge your phone to call your insurance company and fight for an appointment for them to come look at the tree that fell on your roof? Because that’s the alternative

[Anonymous]

People griping about OPM closing must forget that the derecho (which was forecasted yesterday) hit around 10:30 pm in 2012, so most people were home and off the roads. Based on when this line of storm cells was coming in, tons of people would’ve been on the road during another potential derecho or even tornado. It made a ton of sense for OPM to close given the forecasts.

[Anonymous]

But how can they be so wrong? The models really screwed this one up. The problem is next time when they give a strong warning, no one will listen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But how can they be so wrong? The models really screwed this one up. The problem is next time when they give a strong warning, no one will listen.

Because the cells just didn’t explode the way they could have. Conditions that are perfect FOR a tornado don’t GUARANTEE a tornado. Just meant everything was in place along with a strong line of storms to create a worst case that we luckily did not get!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But how can they be so wrong? The models really screwed this one up. The problem is next time when they give a strong warning, no one will listen.

Because the cells just didn’t explode the way they could have. Conditions that are perfect FOR a tornado don’t GUARANTEE a tornado. Just meant everything was in place along with a strong line of storms to create a worst case that we luckily did not get!

But this was the first time in my life (I'm 43) I can remember anything premptively closing/cancelling for a forecasted thunderstorm. They acted like something was DIFFERENT this time. There are lots of storms that have the potential to throw off tornados - we don't cancel for all of them. Why did they think this on was so extra and why were they wrong?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But how can they be so wrong? The models really screwed this one up. The problem is next time when they give a strong warning, no one will listen.

Because the cells just didn’t explode the way they could have. Conditions that are perfect FOR a tornado don’t GUARANTEE a tornado. Just meant everything was in place along with a strong line of storms to create a worst case that we luckily did not get!

But this was the first time in my life (I'm 43) I can remember anything premptively closing/cancelling for a forecasted thunderstorm. They acted like something was DIFFERENT this time. There are lots of storms that have the potential to throw off tornados - we don't cancel for all of them. Why did they think this on was so extra and why were they wrong?

DP. The threat level was not like something we'd seen since the derecho - something not seen for 11 years. And as pp mentioned, the derecho was later at night - so yes, this WAS different. It was NOT expected to just be a regular thunderstorm. I honestly don't understand those complaining. Count your lucky stars and be grateful this storm didn't cause a huge mess. And it was messy in someplace, just a bit further out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But how can they be so wrong? The models really screwed this one up. The problem is next time when they give a strong warning, no one will listen.

Because the cells just didn’t explode the way they could have. Conditions that are perfect FOR a tornado don’t GUARANTEE a tornado. Just meant everything was in place along with a strong line of storms to create a worst case that we luckily did not get!

But this was the first time in my life (I'm 43) I can remember anything premptively closing/cancelling for a forecasted thunderstorm. They acted like something was DIFFERENT this time. There are lots of storms that have the potential to throw off tornados - we don't cancel for all of them. Why did they think this on was so extra and why were they wrong?

Are you new to weather? They’re always doing the best they can to predict. This is no different than when they think a hurricane will make landfall one place and it ends up hitting somewhere else, or they predict a cat4 and then it weakens and hits at a cat2. Or when they predict 2-5 inches of snow and we get 1 or 8.