4 ms·

The headline isn't exactly true. The city of Holland is on Lake Michigan and gets a unique Michigan phenomena called lake effect snows. Lake effect is snow fa

by rmason 3y ago

The headline isn't exactly true. The city of Holland is on Lake Michigan and gets a unique Michigan phenomena called lake effect snows. Lake effect is snow falling on the lee side of a lake, generated by cold dry air passing over warmer water. Probably a half dozen times a year when the weather is right they will get three or four inches an hour and overwhelm the heating system. Still it works the majority of the time and is pretty unique.

pimlottc 3y ago
Not entirely unique, lake effect snow hits many parts of the Great Lakes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake-effect_snow https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake-effect_snow
- unshavedyak 3y ago
  Yup. Grew up in MN. If there was a huge storm it was almost always due to that, or so the news said.
dave78 3y ago
The article is also misleading (IMO) as to the scope of the project. It amounts to about 5 blocks of road in the downtown area. The article says "5 miles" but that must be counting the length of all the sidewalks. It's certainly not 5 miles of streets. It's a very nice feature if you're visiting the downtown area, but it's mostly a novelty for residents. Other than a lucky few who actually live downtown, everyone still has to clear their streets/driveways there just like anywhere else. If anything, it probably benefits the tourists and tourism most.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
  They do include an interactive map in the article that is much more… whelming. Of interest though, looking at the interactive map we see some of the lucky neighborhoods you mentioned standing seemingly separate from the rest of the network that have the system installed. I wonder why and how that came to be.
  - camkego 3y ago
    I was curious about this also. One isolated area with the heating is the Holland Energy Park utility company. I guess running the system has it's benefits.
brailsafe 3y ago
They do mention the lake effect in the first sentence though

by rmason 3y ago

pimlottc 3y ago

Not entirely unique, lake effect snow hits many parts of the Great Lakes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake-effect_snow https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake-effect_snow

unshavedyak 3y ago
Yup. Grew up in MN. If there was a huge storm it was almost always due to that, or so the news said.

dave78 3y ago

The article is also misleading (IMO) as to the scope of the project. It amounts to about 5 blocks of road in the downtown area. The article says "5 miles" but that must be counting the length of all the sidewalks. It's certainly not 5 miles of streets. It's a very nice feature if you're visiting the downtown area, but it's mostly a novelty for residents. Other than a lucky few who actually live downtown, everyone still has to clear their streets/driveways there just like anywhere else. If anything, it probably benefits the tourists and tourism most.

SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
They do include an interactive map in the article that is much more… whelming. Of interest though, looking at the interactive map we see some of the lucky neighborhoods you mentioned standing seemingly separate from the rest of the network that have the system installed. I wonder why and how that came to be.
- camkego 3y ago
  I was curious about this also. One isolated area with the heating is the Holland Energy Park utility company. I guess running the system has it's benefits.

brailsafe 3y ago

They do mention the lake effect in the first sentence though