Audio By Carbonatix
Welcome to our second ever live weather blog, where the news is made up and the weather doesn’t really matter. Here are the facts — it’s cold. How cold, you ask? Well, imaginary internet person, it’s really very cold. Cold enough that, were Jack Nicholson to head outside with an axe right now and encounter a complex maze, he would be unlikely to survive long enough to murder anyone.
Do we have facts for you, figures, maybe? No. We do not. We are not competent meteorologists, or even journalists. What we do have for you, though, is rampant speculation, self-pity, some pictures of snow, and if you’re lucky, there will be a dog or two frolicking in a winter wonderland. So stay tuned.
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10:00
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The city is expected to luckily fall in between two intimidatingly drawn clouds of bad stuff today.
As you can see, a purple thing will move forward, while a white thing has already moved forward. This weather lark is easy.
Meanwhile, Jackson loves the snow —
And Cane Rosso has made a tribute to yesterday’s forecast. Never forget.
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Friday Feb 7, 09:00
After the snow penis had its way with us, now The Shoddily Drawn Blue Pickle of Reckoning is on its way.
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17:45
Updates from Delkus on Snow Penis Penetration Levels –
As you can see, we’ve all had better.
Unfortunately, this man was the first victim of the power outages, ironically near the end of a tweet about how he was being smug about power outages.
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17:30
Word reaches us from ERCOT that you might not want to use so much electricity tonight, in case you spoil electricity for everyone else. They ask you to turn your thermostat down to a maximum 68 degrees.
Now, I’m not going to do that because I have the vital job of keeping you updated on ICE FORCE LEVEL TWO, but you should, because they’re threatening rolling blackouts of 15-45 minutes each, across neighborhoods, if their conditions are not met. The electricity terrorists.
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15:30
The sheer awfulness of this snowman perfectly captures the horror and dangers of #ICEFORCELEVELTWO.
He looks as if he’s seen the terror that awaits Dallas, because apparently temperatures won’t be back above freezing until tomorrow afternoon. Have a nice commute.
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15:10
If you’re thinking about driving home from work, you might want to start out about, ooh, three hours ago.
Meanwhile, a dog fight is going on —
and a second wave of wintry “dusting” has been reported, soon to BURY Dallas. We’ll keep you posted.
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14:30
Delkus says it’s over.
BUT WHAT DAMAGE HAS REALLY BEEN DONE, PETE?!
Will Cane Rosso ever recover? I suspect not.
Dickey’s Barbecue wasn’t worth the 99ft anyway, mate.
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13:35
Due to the current weather conditions, the City of Dallas Department of Street Services has elevated its sanding operations to Ice Force Level 2 as of 12:30pm.
This could be the end. The end, everyone. A second snow penis is undoubtedly on the way, my cat thinks he can see a bird out of the window, and my mouse wheel still won’t work.
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13:30
Our favorite tweets of #ICEFORCELEVELONE so far —
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12:30
Bad news for any school-age Marxists hoping to protest in the northern suburbs –
WFAA’s wonderfully named Bryan Titsworth reports that there are no delays at DFW Airport right now, although there is some serious de-icing going on.
Dallas County have also just announced there will be no refuse collections today —
“Due to deteriorating weather conditions Sanitation Services is suspending collection services (garbage & recycling) for Thursday, February 6, 2014”
So, if your dinner last night smelled really bad and you want it gone, you’ll just have to bury it in snow for the next two days, because they won’t be around until Saturday.
In more serious news, the wheel on my computer mouse has stopped working. Speculation on whether it has iced over or not is rampant within the Cleaver household, with opinion split.
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11:50
We at the Dallas Observer would like to announce that we’ve hired our own weather forecaster. He will read you the news in simple words, while illustrating said weather with appropriate clothing. Here he is.
He will only accept payment in milkbones.
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11:30
We would like to take a minute to salute this man.
The sheer bravery. What a guy. This is the only real way to react to ICE FORCE LEVEL ONE.
Although you may not be outside, cows are.
Take a minute to think of the cows.
On a more serious note, no really, most northern suburbs are letting out kids early. Check your local ISD’s website or Twitter for more info. DISD seems to be the exception.
Also, Eric Nicholson has safely returned from Albertson’s on his bicycle, and reports here.
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10:50
It’s official. Dallas is being attacked by a giant snow penis.
WFAA have helpfully provided the depth the penis will travel, presumably into you, during ICE FORCE LEVEL ONE.
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10:30
We’ve called it. The official name of this storm is definitely #ICEFORCELEVELONE , and it must be all capital letters and you must include a hashtag, because we are living in the digital age. We already got Delkus to re-tweet this vital piece of information —
A re-tweet is basically a contract, especially if there’s no legal disclaimer in Pete’s twitter bio. Which there isn’t.
Some brave people have made it to work, but at what personal cost?
Delkus has taken to insulting people on Twitter –
And RIP Jeff Smith, of NBC
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10:00
Here at ICE FORCE LEVEL ONE, we’re wondering what to call this event. If you remember last time, Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel turned up and bafflingly named it Winter Storm Cleon. Although I will never get tired of typing ICE FORCE LEVEL ONE, we threw it out to Twitter for some suitably dramatic suggestions. The winner gets a hashtag and Observer immortality.
Some people, meanwhile, just aren’t understanding the seriousness of this situation
WE MIGHT ALL BE DEAD BEFORE LUDACRIS CAN MAKE IT HERE
This dog is unimpressed with today.
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09:35
News reaches us that the city has declared ICE FORCE LEVEL ONE is in effect, a term so dramatic I couldn’t have made it up myself. What does this mean, you ask? Well, they’re going to start putting sand on things. Why SANDING THINGS TIME couldn’t have been used we’ll never know, but ICE FORCE LEVEL ONE (which should never, ever be written in lower case) is a much better term. In the press release I have it’s written in red and underlined, which is amazing.
Our music editor sends a picture of the devastation where he is, somewhere in a hip and happening part of East Dallas, although he seems to have taken to hiding behind bushes. Possibly this is to scare passers-by, we can’t be sure. Anything we would write here is rampant speculation, so we’re going to say this – our music editor, Kiernan Maletsky, enjoys hiding behind bushes.
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09:20
We are advised that there is a wind chill advisory in effect until noon. Whether this means that, when it’s cold, the wind is also likely to be cold, is unclear. That would seem to be a common sense statement that does not require WFAA to use capital letters *and* bold, a tactic which is normally only deployed by furious editors.
As far as we can make out, the current snowfall can best be described by the word “dusting,” which as you can see is now very popular.
We need a term which is more dramatic than this, though, to really describe the full devastation happening out there on the street, so we’re going to go with “buried,” as in Dallas is BURIED in snow right now. It’s not buried very deep, obviously, but there’s not really a scale to describe burying, and this is far more dramatic.
As you can see, the situation out there is pretty bad —
and Delkus has lost the plot already, so early on in this crisis —
We will keep an eye on his sleeves, as always. Night gathers, and now my watch begins.
