Yosemite Snowplow |
 Dave Thurlow, Host |
Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow from the Mount Washington Observatory and this is The Weather Notebook. In the second part of our series about the spring opening of highway 140 through Yosemite, Robin White takes us on a ride on a snowplow.
"Getting to the site where snowplows clear the road across Yosemite's mountains, you drive through of white channel cut through snow many feet high. Eventually the road deadends into a snowbank where two huge yellow snowploughs are spitting a mash of shattered snow and ice off to the side of the road. Johanna Garries is one of the drivers.
RW: What are you turning on right now?
JG: 'It's a throttle.. put it in gear and go ... It's like a big egg beater up there....Just pulls the snow into it. They go around... it pulls the snow inside and goes out the chute and then shoots off the road.'
|
The machine is so high up that Garries has to look out the side window to see where she's going. All the while she's listening to the sound the enormous engine because it's not just snow that the machine picks up.
JG: 'Right here you're aware that there might be small rocks in here next to the road and you might want to pay attention and feel if there's anything unusual so you can stop and check it out.'
RW: You can't really see anything, so that's a feel kind of thing?
JG: 'Right exactly. The same goes for any kind of tree branches or anything that might be alongside the road like that.'
And if you wonder how she knows she's staying on the road and not wandering off into the scenery - just like everyone else, snowplough drivers follow the yellow line down the middle of the road!"
Tomorrow, we'll hear how Yosemite's snowplow drivers keep themselves safe from avalanches.
The Weather Notebook is underwritten by Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive with major support by the National Science Foundation.