Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: New York Snow Blizzard

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Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 01-26-2015, 10:45 PM:

Will the movie theatres in NYC and the Broadway theatres be open or closed for the big storm??? Will they have power to heat the popcorn? Run for cover, the giant storm is coming!!!!!

Posted by Jarod Reddig (Member # 6363) on 01-26-2015, 10:58 PM:

Id imagine its all post-poned. I feel for everyone in the path of the blizzard. Looks like a doozy.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-26-2015, 11:45 PM:

There was a storm that went thru here in October of 2013. We just got missed by it -- got a couple of inches of snow out of it -- but it hit our south-east neighbors in Rapid City, SD hard... they had over 4 feet of snow. It wound up stranding thousands of cattle most of which froze to death. It shut down air travel into the area for over a week -- my buddy Keith (who lived there at the time) was stuck in Minneapolis for 9 days because no flights were going into Rapid. He finally rented a car and drove home once the roads cleared up. So yeah, anytime a lot of snow happens it's a bad deal ESPECIALLY in a city where everything pretty much depends on everybody being able to move.

In small towns we just tend to shove that crap aside and keep on going since we can do things like park anywhere we need to during the worst of it, but when we get anything over a foot or so life still becomes a challenge.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 01-27-2015, 11:25 AM:

In some of my old trade journals, there are stories of the theatres being
closed on Broadway and in other East Coast cities several times during
both WWI and WWII due to coal shortages caused by a slow down in the
mining industry due to many of the men being sent to war, and also due
to 'war priorities' which gave places like factories, railroads and hospitals
a priority on the available coal supply.

In the 1970's, during the Arab oil embargo, the large theater I where I was
working at in NY had to close several times one winter due to a shortage
of heating oil.

(Fortunately, I was in "The Union", so I got paid for missed shifts anyway)

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 01-27-2015, 11:40 AM:

The storm pretty much gave NY/NJ a miss, except for eastern Long Island. Problem is, all the chain theaters announced last night in a panic that they would close for the day today, and now they are left with dark screens on a day of only moderate snow. There are a few independents open. The little 5-screen art house a few towns over will open this afternoon, to I'm guessing what will be a very nice evening.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 01-27-2015, 12:01 PM:

We got about 1.5-2' of snow today here in Boston (and still coming). All public transportation is shut down and there is currently still a ban on driving. Pretty much every business is closed today as a result (since employees and customers would have a hard time getting anywhere), and many schools have even cancelled classes for tomorrow. Roads will probably be clear by early to mid-morning on Wednesday, and I would expect that cinemas will re-open on Wednesday night.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 01-27-2015, 12:52 PM:

> We got about 1.5-2' of snow today here in Boston (and still coming).

And that is where snow belongs... [Smile]

32 miles northwest of Manhattan, we got a devastating 3" (inches) of snow (and it is now sunny out). Nobody can figure out how the weather people got it so wrong.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-27-2015, 01:20 PM:

One time the weather report called for a slight chance of rain and we got 3 inches in two days of nonstop downpour. It's definitely not an exact science!

I always thought it was kind of a joke that people would get mad at the TV weatherman for "getting it wrong," but my wife works a lot with a TV station in Billings and their weatherman told her that he frequently gets phone calls at home from people blaming him for "ruining their plans" with the bad weather.

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 01-27-2015, 01:47 PM:

Weather is chaos.
Though it seemed our ancestors were able to predict when it would rain, or snow, by certain nuances in the clouds, how the sunset looked, what the animals were doing, when flys clung to the door screens...
Then there was the science of weather, where high and low pressure systems were recognized, warm and cold fronts. Predictions could be made for about 24 hours but accuracy was never assumed. They knew it is chaos.
Today the "forecast models", relying on historical data, is constantly used. And now there are mesonets all over the country, recording wind, temp, rainfall, barometric pressure. Still, no accuracy in forecasting. Where did the modern yahoos go wrong? Forgetting that weather is chaos.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 01-27-2015, 04:10 PM:

> Weather is chaos.

No. I do not agree. Weather is physics. As you said, weather prediction is a matter of air pressure, temperature, moisture content, wind speed, etc. They can predict with a great deal of accuracy as far out as they can accurately measure, and that is the rub. When the conditions do not permit accurate measurement, they measure what they can and use various "forecast models" to guess what will happen based upon the measurement they do have, rather than clearly stating that the current state of technology does not permit an accurate forecast and these are the possibilities.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-28-2015, 02:17 PM:

In one sense James is correct in saying "weather is chaos," if you refer to things like chaos theory, fractal geometry and "the butterfly effect."

Ultimately weather is all about cause and effect from many billions of different variables coming into conflict with each other. Evaporation, convection and condensation are some of the biggest variables. The moon's gravitational pull, topography of the land and different water sources all have an effect.

Forecast models don't just compare historical data with current numbers. Powerful super computing systems simulate weather patterns with all sorts of very complex math formulas. Often one computer's simulated result doesn't agree completely with another computer's results.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-29-2015, 02:29 AM:

quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
Nobody can figure out how the weather people got it so wrong.

Sorry to sound smug, but I can.

I first noticed this syndrome after the so-called "hurricane" in 1987. Michael Fish's infamous weather forecast broadcast a few hours before it hit ("Some woman has just called me up ... says there'll be a hurricane tonight ... well don't worry, there won't") became one of the defining moments in British TV history. After that, it seemed to me that weather forecasters would far rather predict an apocalypse that failed to materialize than fail to predict one that did. In other words, if it's a choice between crying wolf or missing an actual alarm, then crying wolf is the lesser of two evils.

As a general rule, I think short-term (as in, from about a week out) forecasting is pretty accurate, by and large. But it can get the precise timings and locations a bit out, as in this case. The problems come when a major metropolitan area is potentially affected, as happened, here, when the disruption stakes are that much higher.

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 01-29-2015, 07:10 AM:

quote: Jim Cassedy
Fortunately, I was in "The Union", so I got paid for missed shifts anyway

And yet, we wonder what caused the demise of Union projectionists... [Smile]

Regarding this Armageddon level blizzard, why does there have to be so much hype and panic. Just use common sense. If there is a major snow storm, stay indoors at home until the worst passes and the roads are plowed. It is a sad state of humanity that we need "States of Emergency" and travel bans complete with threats of arrest.