It was an IMC day with plenty of arrivals and departures taxing out. For a VFR tower like ours, IMC days are the easiest because the pattern is closed and it’s generally one in and one out. The TRACON was pushing metal all around. All air traffic was on IFR flight plans, so it was just a tad busier on our combined ground/clearance. I was working Tower and the controller working the combined ground and clearance was having a bad day.
There were over 15 flight plans, three of which had EDCTs and four that were waiting to taxi because the weather along their route suggested delaying the departure would be safer. Then we had six aircraft call to taxi at the same time. The Ground controller was getting flustered with everyone wanting out at the same time and even transmitting over each other. Any sense of FCFS was lost in the chaos. I tried to keep track of the traffic so I could get the releases in order. Ground ended up just giving them all taxi instructions and gave me all the flight progress strips at once, in no particular order.
