Gridlock Friday here we come

Pardon me whilst I engage in a little local flavor. For any Memphis readers, yes, we have a little winter storm event predicted for tonight and tomorrow (official mass hysteria to begin shortly) but the city apparently decided it might also be fun to close the intersection at Walnut Grove Rd and Humphreys Blvd at 9 AM at the same time. Just part of the ongoing tangled mess already ongoing.

Memphis city engineer Wain Gaskins said forecasts for subfreezing temperatures Friday night forced officials to move up the beginning of the work to Friday morning.

"You have to have a certain temperature to manufacture asphalt and lay it to where it will harden properly," Gaskins said.

Hmmm. The forecast high for Memphis Friday is 37. The contractors are saying they can't lay blacktop at temps below freezing, but it's only going to be 5 degrees above that tomorrow, with possible frozen precipitation as well. This should be interesting.

Now, excuse me but it's state law that I run to the supermarket and get milk and bread.

BACK 11/30

Time for some limb walking. As to the snow day, it just ain't gonna happen. Living 'round here for more than a decade whenever low pressures (those red L's on the map) go directly overhead we get nothing. The red L's need to go a few hundred miles south of here for us to get clobbered. Besides, the weather rock isn't cold.