After last semester's snow storm trapped several students in Charlottesville at the beginning of Winter Break, some students may have been apprehensive about the University's response to weather-related events.
But University Services pulled together Saturday to combat the unexpectedly heavy snowfall that hit Grounds.
"What we had projected as a pretty moderate event turned out to be much more significant," said Jay Klingel, director of operations and maintenance. "In the last 10 years, I don't remember too many times when we got 10 inches in one storm."
The track of the storm, the speed of its movement and its intensification led to larger amounts of precipitation that had originally been anticipated, said Jerry Stenger, director of the University's State Climatology Office.
"In some respects, the snowfall we received this past weekend was reasonably well forecast ... The timing was fairly clear," Stenger said.
The 10 inches that hit Grounds, however, were nearly twice as much as initially anticipated. "The snowfall amounts were definitely underestimated," he added.
"Forecasting snow is intrinsically very tricky because it doesn't take a lot of moisture to produce a rather large amount of snow," Stenger said.
Whereas the typical ratio of inches of water precipitation to snowfall accumulation in the area is 1-to-10, this last storm had a ratio close to 1-to-13, Stenger said, adding that a shift of as little as 20 or 30 miles in the exact track of the storm can make a big difference.
Because of the inaccurate forecast, the University was forced to change its course of action. With the original plan, Klingel said, landscape crews - the primary snow removers - had been scheduled to work all day Saturday and Sunday, and maintenance people were told to only come in Sunday. When the department realized late Saturday morning that snowfall amounts had been underestimated, it had to scramble to fill the personnel void.
Nevertheless, "by lunch time, people were starting to arrive, and we had a lot of support from our trade support people," he said. "We know that we can depend on people when we need them."\nDirector of Emergency Preparedness Marge Sidebottom also noted the facilities crews' promptness.
"The crews from facilities are remarkable in their ability to work and get things cleared," Dshe said. "It takes a lot to get all that done."
Sidebottom said a lot of pre-planning went into response efforts, as the University wanted to ensure that dining facilities and libraries were open, that bus services were available and that parking and transportation adjusted their service routes to get students to the dining facility.
When University Transit Service made the decision to change its routes, the University spread the information by e-mailing senior residents and resident advisers, Assoc. Dean of Students Bill Ashby said.
Sidebottom said her office is examining its response and evaluating how can it improve its efforts so that the University is better prepared the next time a storm of this magnitude hits the area.\n"So far, we're comfortable with what occurred," she added.
Ashby encouraged students to let the University know how they viewed the response efforts.
"Ultimately, our goal is to make sure we're meeting your needs, so the more feedback we get, the better," she said.
Stenger predicted that Charlottesville will see light snowfall tonight and a potentially large storm system with large amounts of sleet or freezing rain this coming Friday through Sunday morning, though he explained that it is too early to make a definitive call.
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