Cold Storm to Disrupt Travel
Cold Storm to Disrupt Travel
February 18, 2013; 1:46 PM
Last Friday, my posting was about about a cold storm coming Tuesday and what I thought the details of this storm was going to be for California and Arizona, places most hard-hit by this storm. Saturday, I issued a small update basically saying that little had changed in my thinking despite the models not having as much precipitation.
Today, I continue to like what I issued last Friday far more than what the details of the models have. It seems they just may not be catching the amount of precipitation that will fall, especially in Southern California and Arizona.
For that reason, I am going to pretty much copy below what I issued on Friday. There are some minor changes in snow levels and accumulations but really they are pretty minor considering the time frames involved. The major impacts of this storm will be the cold and the thunderstorm threat, especially central and Southern California, with hail likely and the very, very low snow levels.
Expect snow accumulations even in portions of the upper deserts and foothills of the mountains. Several of the high sections of I-15 from Victorville to outside of Primm will receive snow and even accumulating snow that can cause icy travel. There is a decent chance of snow being seen in Las Vegas late Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. The mountain passes from the Central Valley to the coast will have snow that can accumulate as well and could cause at the least icy travel. Expect major problems through the Grapevine, Soledad Canyon and Cajon Pass with shutdowns of these roads a good possibility.
In Arizona, the worst weather will be Wednesday into Wednesday night. Snow levels here are likely to fall to impressively low levels to 3,000 feet or so. Heavy snow is likely above 5,000 feet with 8 to 16 inches and possibly more above 7,000 feet, but snow is also likely to fall in much of the Rim Country and accumulate too with 3 to 6 inches down to at least 3,500 feet. Therefore expect rough travel anywhere from the higher foothill and upper deserts and Rim Country through the mountains.
PORTIONS OF THE ORIGINAL POST:
In California:
-Rainfall northern to central California averages one-third to two-thirds of an inch.
-Snow levels plummet Tuesday reaching 2,500 feet in the north to 3,000 feet in the southern Sierra and coastal range by Tuesday afternoon and drop another 500 feet Tuesday night into Wednesday for central California.
-Resort levels pick up 8-16 inches of snow but several inches of snow could accumulate down to 3,000 feet.
-A little light rain and drizzle can occur at any time west of the mountains Southern California, but the heaviest rain will come in the afternoon into part of Tuesday night before becoming showery later Tuesday night with a few showers lingering into Wednesday. Rainfall amounts of one-half to 1 inch seem likely with locally higher amounts in the lower foothills of the coastal slopes.
-Snow levels start out at 4,000 feet Los Angeles County mountains and east and 4,500 to 5,000 feet San Diego but fall to 3,000 feet late in the day and down to 2,500 feet everywhere Tuesday night and Wednesday. Resorts could pick up 1-2 feet of snow with 4 to 8 inches down to pass level (Grapevine/Cajon/Highway 14) and maybe a couple inches down to 3,000 feet. If this happens, major travel problems are likely through all the passes.
-Expect temperatures to be 25-30 degrees colder than they are today and will be tomorrow for Tuesday and Wednesday.
In Arizona:
-Precipitation develops from west to east later Tuesday night and Wednesday with the heaviest precipitation Wednesday.
-Deserts pick up one-quarter to one-half of an inch of rain with locally higher amounts possible and there may be thunder and lightning.
-Snow levels also become very low dropping to 4,000 feet Wednesday. This can bring substantial accumulation to Rim Country with 3-8 inches possible down to 5,000 feet. Mountains above 6,500 and 7,000 feet could pick up 12 to 18 inches with chances of up to 2 feet.
-There will likely be travel problems across the state as well, especially the major road, I40, across the northern part of the state.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com
Wisconsin GOP forces 2000 low-income women to travel miles for reproductive …
If you think the Republican war on women, specifically the campaign against Planned Parenthood diminished after last year's electoral defeat, think (yet) again.
Planned Parenthood said Monday it will close four of its 27 locations in Wisconsin (in Beaver Dam, Johnson Creek, Chippewa Falls and Shawano) between April and July due to a lack of state funding.
Gov. Scott Walker and his Republican cronies in the legislature eliminated public funding for low-income and uninsured patients seeking reproductive health care at Planned Parenthood, the largest provider in the state, because some of its clinics offer abortions.
That means about 2,000 low-income residents who need cancer screening, breast exams, birth control, pregnancy test, or testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases may have to travel up to an hour to go to a location in another county.
Its terribly unfortunate for the women who live in these areas," said Teri Huyck, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Wisconsin. "Without the state support, we didnt have a choice.
Don Orsillo, Jerry Remy, Jenny Dell Travel New England for Spring Training …
As spring training got underway, NESNs Red Sox broadcast team set of on a whirlwind journey to meet with Sox fans across New England.
Don Orsillo, Jerry Remy and Jenny Dell visited Burlington, Vt., Hartford, Conn., Springfield, Mass., Portland, Maine, and Providence, RI, over a four-day span, making appearances everywhere from courthouses to sports bars to call centers.
Check out some highlights from their travels in the video above.
Thumbnail photo via Twitter/@TheRickyDoyle
Hazardous travel due to winter storm likely to begin late Monday night
WEST MICHIGAN -- The National Weather Service issued a statement that hazardous driving conditions could begin late tonight.
NWS issued a hazardous weather outlook for most of West Michigan just before 8 pm on Monday, Feb. 18. Hazardous travel conditions are expected to develop as a strong cold front crosses the area between 1 and 3 am on Tuesday, Feb. 19.
This will quickly change the rain to snow with strong gusty winds, the statement said. Temperatures will quickly fall into the 20s behind the front, causing sidewalks and untreated roads to become very icy. Winds will be strong and gusty so any snow that falls will be blown around only adding to the hazardous conditions.
The weather statement includes Kent, Ionia, Ottawa, Mecosta, Barry and Allegan counties.
Locations near and west of US 131 will see the most snow, but all areas will see enough snow that, combined with the wind, it will make travel hazardous to occasional white-outs, the weather service said.
Related:
bullet; Winter weather advisory issued for West Michigan; up to 6 inches of snow, gusty weather possible
bullet; Are you ready for the wind whiplash? Consumers Energy has tips to prepare for the upcoming storm
Email Kyle Moroney at kmoroney@mlive.com or follow her on Twitter or Facebook
On the road, off the court: Where Bulls play
In a regular NBA season encompassing 72 games, the Chicago Bulls will travel to 23 cities from coast to coast over the course of 51/2 months, visiting a few of those cities (New York and Los Angeles) more than once. Though they travel by private jet (except for a couple of bus trips to Milwaukee), its a punishing schedule sleep-wise because players and coaches dont leave for their next destination until after a game. With hotel arrival times at 2 am or 3 am, there isnt much time to explore their destinations, but players certainly have their favorite spots to land, usually related to family and warm weather.
American Airlines, US Airways merger to alter business travel
In the wake of the deal to merge American Airlines and US Airways, many business travelers are asking themselves the same question: What does this mean for me?
Change is the only certain answer.
And change, according to some airline experts, is not good for business travelers who have grown accustomed to their regular airline routes, connecting hubs and frequent flier programs.
What I can see is 900 pitfalls, said Joe Brancatelli, a business travel expert who writes a regular online column on the subject. I dont see an upside.
The $11-billion deal announced last week would create the worlds largest airline, employing more than 100,000 workers and serving about 187 million passengers a year.
In announcing the merger, US Airways Chief Executive Doug Parker said the new airline would probably maintain all of the hubs and destinations of the two carriers.
But Brancatelli is doubtful.
When an airline tells you they are keeping everything, that is a lie, he said.
Although the two airlines have very few routes that overlap, Brancatelli said American and US Airways have several connecting hubs in the same region, some of which would have to be eliminated.
For example, he noted that US Airways operates a major hub in Phoenix, while American operates a connecting hub in Dallas. Brancatelli said he suspects the merged airline will cut flights to Phoenix, making Dallas the primary hub for the region.
These guys didnt merge to make our lives better, he said. They merged for their own purposes.
Still, executives from American and US Airways stress that the merger would primarily benefit frequent business travelers because, under the combined resources of the new carrier, they would be able to choose from 6,700 daily flights to 336 destinations in 56 countries.
Travelers who have acquired frequent flier miles with either airline can carry them over and redeem them on the new, larger carrier, they promise.
There are only upsides, said Thomas Horton, chief executive for AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines.
American Airlines loyalty rewards program, AAdvantage, is the nations largest and has been ranked by several publications and analysts as one of the best.
AAdvantage is a three-tier system that rewards travelers for accumulating miles with such perks as seat upgrades, free checked bags and early boarding. Each tier represents a higher status level, such as AAdvantage Gold, AAdvantage Platinum and AAdvantage Executive Platinum.
Most other airline loyalty programs, including US Airways Dividend Miles program, have four tiers and require passengers to accumulate more miles to reach elite status, according to travel experts.
But how American Airlines AAdvantage and US Airways Dividend Miles programs will be merged has not been decided.
At some point we will have to look at that, said John McDonald, a spokesman for US Airways. What I can say is that we are going to do what is right.
Alicia Jao, vice president of Travelnerd, a website that analyzes travel deals, said she suspects the rewards program for the newly merged airline would shift to a four-tier system to match the rewards programs at other airlines.
The change may upset Americans frequent fliers, she said, but they would probably understand that change was inevitable.
hugo.martin@latimes.com
Find. Eat. Drink. – A Travel App Curated By Food Lovers, For Food Lovers
When traveling, food lovers often rely on the suggestions of others to find the best places to eat, drink and dine out. For travelers merely passing through a region or without foodie friends nearby, new (free!) app Find. Eat. Drink. might be the ultimate solution.
Marketed as the worlds first travel guide curated by top tier chefs, sommeliers, bartenders, baristas, pitmasters and food artisans, the app differentiates itself from other travel products on the market in that it showcases credible references from top industry insiders to populate an app that is friendly to the local and traveler alike.
The app allows you to choose a nearby option (within 10 miles of your current location) or from over 120 cities and towns, worldwide and features 2,100 establishments from 340 experts with updates added weekly. Once a user finds a place of interest they can choose to visit the website or make a reservation, which is convenient for on the go needs.
From the Cajun to the Basque, Boston to Barcelona, Miami to Montreal, youll find great suggestions of things to eat and drink across neighborhoods large and small. We particularly like that you can narrow by region, such as limiting Boston to a South End or Back Bay search, and that items arent just restricted to high-end, dine-in restaurants. The app includes suggestions for coffee, dessert, cocktails (pubs and dive bars included!), farmers markets, butchers, candy shops, ice cream parlors, even shops that sell culinary antiques.
Expertise ranges from well-known chefs, like Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin and Andoni Luis Aduriz of Mugaritz, to the purveyors they use, like Allan Benton of Bentons Bacon, and winemakers like Arianna Occhipinti.
A social component adds another layer: users can look up a place, see who recommended it, look at the recommenders profile, go to their recommendations and so on and so forth.
Dont want to use your smart phone? You dont have to. Theres a website, too.
TomorrowWorld: Tomorrowland Festival Will Travel To New Destination In …
The folks behind Tomorrowland, said to be the worlds biggest dance music festival, have quite an announcement: The party is hitting the road.
Dubbed TomorrowWorld, the first iteration of a Tomorrowland-organized event outside of Belgium will take place Sept. 27-29, 2013. The destination has yet to be revealed, but the team has rolled out a website and guessing game for fans.
The news comes at a great time for the Tomorrowland team, which sold out 180,000 tickets in just one second, according to press materials provided by the festival. Attendees from 214 countries will attend this years main event, a higher number than those who participated in the London Olympics (204 nations). A number of festivalgoers will fly in on Tomorrowland branded planes and stay at discounted hotels.
Tomorrowland was founded by Manu and Michiel Beers, Belgian brothers who describe TomorrowWorld as more exciting than anything we ever dreamed of when we started years ago as young music lovers and entrepreneurs.
We see it as a big, fantastic and very unique opportunity, they said in a statement. It will be an enormous challenge and a big step for our young, creative and vibrant team.
Though the location of the new festival has yet to be announced, the Beers brothers promise it will take place somewhere that feels like a second home thats similar to our fantastic terrain in Belgium.
TomorrowWorld marks yet another step in the festivals attempts to include -- and monetize -- those who are unable to buy tickets for and/or travel to Tomorrowland. Last year, the festival partnered with YouTube to launch Tomorrowland TV, which offered seven hours of live-streaming on each day of the event.
UPDATE: Industry rabble-rouser Albert Berdellans has some more TomorrowWorld developments, which are unverified at this time. (Berdellans goes by The EDM Snob and is an employee of Ultra Music. He says the below tweets are wholly unrelated to his employment at Ultra.)
Should Women Travel Solo?
As a woman who has spent the better part of 40 years traveling solo, I find the story of Sarai Sierras murder devastating and grieve for her family. But the media outcry that followed it is sensationalist and in some instances shameful.
Sarai, in case youve been off the grid, was a woman from New York who apparently set out to photograph the sights abroad and whose body was found near Istanbuls Galata Bridge the day she was due to fly home.
While few facts have emerged, the flights of fancy found in some of the comments to news stories can make you wonder whether youve stepped into a time machine, backwards.
Some of whats being said...
o Her two young sons should have been her primary focus in life, not traveling to a foreign country to take pictures. Responsibility and parenting go hand in hand.
o This woman deserved what she got.
o Women should never travel alone.
This type of reaction has been beset by ignorance, prejudice and even xenophobia. Media coverage and comments about Sarais murder uncover a clear subtext: She had it coming, and none of this would have happened had she stayed home where she belonged.
Some of the comments are downright sexist. If she had been a man, how many commenters would have implied he should have stayed home with his kids and he deserved what he got?
Hardly any, I suspect. And that, in 2013, is repulsive.
Sarai could have been any of dozens of women travelers I know who have visited Istanbul solo, as I have, as you may have, enjoying encounters that are benign at worst and joyful and enlightening at best. To me these encounters are brief windows that open into other cultures and are the reason many of us choose to sometimes travel on our own, away from the cocoon of a partner or a group.
Regrettably, travelers do run into violence, solo or in large groups, and men, as statistics bear out, encounter violence even more often than women. There are muggings, thefts, aggressions and yes, murders, though extremely few: We just hear about them at length when they happen in so-called exotic locations and to women.
Thats precious little consolation to Sarais family but the stinging reality is that her murder could have been committed -- with greater statistical probability -- right near her New York home, and by someone she knew.
Does this have anything to do with solo travel?
The fact that violence against women is endemic, not only in Turkey but in all parts of the world, demonstrates yet again that we havent come as far as wed like to think.
Mariellen Ward of Breathe Dream Go tells us the creation of #WeGoSolo, the wildly successful Twitter hashtag that encourages women to travel solo, is evidence that we still need to shout out our rights because we cannot take them for granted.
Christine Gilbert of Almost Fearless concludes, statistics in hand, that traveling may well be safer than staying home, especially if you happen to live in the US. Travelers do die abroad, but mostly from road accidents and drowning.
And Jodi Ettenberg at Legal Nomads ties it all together by placing emphasis where it belongs, not on solo travel but on violence against women.
The medias microscopic examination of Sarais life - how much she spent, where she went, the backgrounds of the people she met, what kind of camera she used - may be necessary for the investigation but also hints she might be guilty of something. Accusing the victim is a classic ploy of blame and a disguised or misguided effort to control the rest of us.
Sarais murder should never have happened. That it did wasnt her fault. The mere thought that any woman exercising her independence and self-reliance could be blamed for the subsequent violence against her is an insult.
And so far, I see no reason to stop traveling solo. In fact...#WeGoSolo.
Tibet Highlight Group Travel – New Budget Namtso Landscape tour in 2013 with …
Tibet Highlight Group Travel - New Budget Namtso Landscape tour in 2013 with tibetctrip.com
Local Lhasa travel agent (tibetctrip.com) announced a new Budget Tibet Group Tour with highlight of Namtso. This 5 days Tibet culture and landscape trip covers the top Tibet attractions of Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple, Barkhor Streets, Drepung and Sera Monastery as well as the famous Namtso in northern Tibet.