started earlier and farther west than initially anticipated.(Westbound motorists became stranded on the east side of the Turnpike's Allegheny Tunnel. This link to a wiki article about the tunnel includes a view from the final curve on what I remember as a grim uphill climb to the tunnel's eastern entrance.)
After reading the quote from the turnpike official, I googled "Louis Uccellini" because I remembered seeing a brief television clip showing the director of the National Weather Service cautioning uncertainty about the northern edge of the snow. Would that the local forecast offices in Pennsylvania had been echoing the caution of their Director. Instead, until the last minute, their public forecasts reflected a confident dismissal of the few models that were suggesting the possibility of a rapid northward advance of the heavy snow.
On Monday a Turnpike official clarified that, despite initial anticipations, their crews had reacted and had been doing everything they could to keep their road plowed and treated. On Tuesday the Turnpike officials and the Governor received new rounds of (undeserved, I think) criticism. Last Friday they were caught between a rock and a hard place. Even if an omniscient private forecaster had successfully urged closing the Bedford-New Stanton section of the Turnpike late Friday afternoon or early Friday evening, Turnpike officials would have been criticized by the
high volumeof travelers who had chosen to escape DC at the last minute, having timed their escape based on the increasingly confident and specific public forecasts, and so not expecting the possibility of being blockaded at Bedford or Breezewood. If I had been traveling west from Washington last Friday, I would not have cut it that close. But then, I'm a meteorologist.
