This current weather...

<p>is awful. Lord forsaken awful. The steps of several buildings were icing over as I walked on them and almost slipped a few times. It's so darned cold, and power lines were iced over, resulting in a Lambeth power outage for half an hour. All cars are crawling at 5mph because of black ice. Here's to all of us breaking our necks on the sidewalks tomorrow as it goes below freezing tonight. We do have good work crews though, so thank goodness for them.</p>

<p>looks like an excuse not to go to class if you ask me.</p>

<p>Haha -- rumors are floating that classes may be canceled. Rumors though, complete fluff.</p>

<p>Well...I'm 400 miles north of Virginia right now, it's been holding steady at 0* F minus wind chill for the past three days...
I'm hoping I'll be at UVa this time next year!</p>

<p>Where I am in western Canada, it was -35˚F 2 days ago...Virginia looks better every day.</p>

<p>Frankly, I REALLY hope they delay classes tomorrow. Last time this crap happened it was disastrous, especially once they canceled the bus system. Everyone was walking, thus slipping, and then there were those who didn't want to walk and ended up having friends drive them or driving themselves, so accidents were abundant. I went out to my car about 30min ago and it was iced over. So, here's to UVA making a decent decision...give it till 11am or so when stuff can melt a tad.</p>

<p>PS- this ice, somehow, beats that horrible wind on Sunday. I didn't go to sleep until 4am and I was woken up at 9am by the horrible noise wind creates when it's buffered by buildings and a tree banging on my window/building. I seriously thought I was going to be blown over at times, it was nuts.</p>

<p>uva doesn't cancel class for nearly anything. I think its because closing portions of the university would also affect things like the Med Center and all that; but basically, unless the snow is up to the tip top of the rotunda, expect to be sloshing to class and be wet and cold all day.</p>

<p>Though, they did seem to be a little better about preventing trouble in the past; They don't seem to put down as much salt and sand when icy weather hits as I remember them doing the last three years. My first year, they were so efficient at removing ice and snow from sidewalks, it doesn't seem to be as good this year... or maybe its just because I have to walk further in the mess this year ;)</p>

<p>But question about the salt, doesn't it horribly add to the salinization of the soil? I imagine after the snow melts, all that salt will go right into the ground..?</p>

<p>I think the University would rather salt the sidewalks once every couple weeks to prevent lawsuits from people falling rather than preventing the soil from becoming partially salinized.</p>