'Snow' links: finding the right level of regulation

Mush on my windowsill.

I’m sitting in DC, looking out a window at a mushy, mostly liquid ‘snow’ storm named after an obscure federal budgetary procedure. There’s a joke in there somewhere about failing to meet the hype. But instead, I’ll offer some links to articles of interest over the past few weeks.

Regulatory challenges. Slate blogger

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Snowpocalypse III – Linkage

Image from Wayan Vota on Flickr

Some more pleas for realistic expectations: Ryan Avent chimes in on the economics of it all, and Jon Chait notes the basic, physical problem with dealing with so much snow in such a short period of time:

In my neighborhood, like much of Washington, people park along the street. When

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Snow perspective, in graph form.

Since we’ve now eclipsed the seasonal record, it’s worth noting how unusual it is for DC to get lots of snow in a season, to say nothing about snow storms coming back to back.  Let’s look at the history:

We’re now well above that blue star for the 1898-99 season record.  As Gabe Klein noted on

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Snowpocalypse III – the removal

Photo from InspirationDC on Flickr.

Well, it’s official.  The winter of 2009-10 is now the snowiest winter on record in DC, eclipsing the snow season of 1898-99  That’s saying something, since DC’s current official weather station is at National Airport, which has abnormal weather conditions compared to the rest of the District, thanks to being

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Snowpocalypse III – time to assess blame

Blame this guy:

Snowpocalypse II – the aftermath

Some more pics from walking around Capitol Hill today:

Different shoveling philosophies

Those who’ve lived in snowy places know this as a matter of fact – it’s a lot easier to shovel 5 inches of snow 5 different times throughout a storm than it is to try to shovel 25 inches all at once.  End result?

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Salt and infrastructure beneath the city

Ever wonder where all that road salt comes from?  A question that’s quite topical today.  Mammoth has a post up on an operating salt mine beneath the city of Detroit.

Detroit Salt Mine

John Nystuen has a discussion of the legal implications, acquiring mineral rights for salt 1,000 feet below the surface of an active city. 

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Metro snow operations

Given the heavy (and ongoing) snowfall, Metro is only operating rail service in select underground locations, in order to prevent trains from getting stranded as accumulating snow makes it difficult to maintain contact with the third rail, and also to use existing tunnels to keep rail cars dry and operable, rather than buried in snow

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Snowpocalypse updates

Venturing into the white abyss…

Some random observations and links, since we’re all stuck inside:

Snowball fights – the new kickball?

Travel by train – “as God intended.” Heh heh.

Some photos I snapped today:

Tree down at Meridian Hill, took out the streetlight on the way down.

Dirfting on steps – U St.

U st.

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Snowpocalypse II

Remain calm.  All is well!

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