No football around here

[BobSch]

The Vikes just can't catch a break. Today's game was postponed to Monday because the Giants couldn't get here. They're stuck in Kansas City because of the blizzard that closed the airport here.

Then to add injury to insult, the inflatable dome on the Metrodome collapsed from the snow! Now they're not sure when the game will be played.

[leehljp]

I saw that on the news! At least the Vikes won't lose on Sunday!

Hey, you need a new QB up there!

[JoeyGee]

Sounds like one of those Buffalo Wild Wings commercials and someone is trying to postpone the game to make sure Favre can keep his streak going.

[TB Roye]

Mother Nature likes Bret Favre and wants him to recover from his shoulder injury. You could probably import some hot air from DC to reinflate the dome.


Tom

[Cochese]

1920 EST in Detroit tomorrow.

[Cochese]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAyLX2hY7E0

[BobSch]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAyLX2hY7E0

I'm glad I wasn't in there! Being buried by an avalanche inside a building would be embarrassing.

[Pappy]

Heard on the news last night that if you are in Detroit, the game is free for anyone that wants to go.

[Stytooner]

With all the tech that went into the design of that roof, you would think they would have considered pumping warmed air into it to melt any snow. You put a balloon under pressure and it's going to fail eventually.

[Cochese]

What's warm? It's kept at 72F inside.

[Stytooner]

Inside the dome, yes.
I meant the air inside the inflatable roof. Couldn't have been warm on the top side to allow such a snow load to develop.
If it is just static air inside it, then that explains it. It should have been circulating through a heat system itself.

[jeepman71]

I feel for you but on the up side you could be a Denver Broncos fan and have my pain. At least the Vikings had an excuse for not showing up yesterday.

[JoeyGee]

It is kinda nice to have professional football back in Detroit.

[Cochese]

Inside the dome, yes.
I meant the air inside the inflatable roof. Couldn't have been warm on the top side to allow such a snow load to develop.
If it is just static air inside it, then that explains it. It should have been circulating through a heat system itself.

As far as I know, the roof is simply huge Teflon double sheets. The roof is held aloft by the air in the stadium, and the air inside melts the snow. You can see huge streams of water pouring through before the collapse.

Have to remember this is 1980 technology here. They had a crew melting the snow, but had to pull them off due to the winds. No wind, probably no collapse.

[Kristofor]

The roof collapsing from snow was a yearly event back in the early days of the Metrodome, but they have been more proactive about clearing it in recent years.

They do use hot air inside to melt the snow, they also use steam and hot water outside. The roof itself isn't inflated like an air mattress, it's just blowers running all the time to build air presssure inside that keeps it up (like when you capture a bunch of air under a sheet on your bed and it takes a couple seconds to deflate).

Sub-zero temps, and 30MPH winds (50MPH gusts) disipates a whole lot of heat, but more importantly the wind made them pull the workers who were clearing the roof off for safety reasons...

In some regards halfway melting the snow probably hurt as much as it helped... Snow can drift, and it can slide downhill somewhat, but it's not going to move too far to fill in a slightly low spot, water will flow much more easily perhaps concentrating the load more dynamically than snow alone would have done?

For whatever it's worth, I went to the grocery store at 8:30PM on Saturday a few hours after the snow stopped, and out in the far burbs the roads were 90%+ plowed down to pavement at that time. Makes me SO glad I don't live/work in Minneapolis/Saint Paul anymore. A lack of off-street parking leads to days/weeks of misery dealing with snow removal...