Being from Iowa, I agree, but when this only happens once every hundred years? or never? The local infrastructure is not prepared. Similarly, we routinely get weeks over 100 degrees, but when I was in England a few summers ago, they were have trouble with a national "heat wave" in the 80's-90s. Not that hot, but they were unprepared, as most of England doesn't have central AC.
ha...Wait'll the brave new electric cars are here. Then the internal combustion gas burners will be back. Goes in circles...big oblong ones.
Wow!!! And I thought we ´ve had a cold spell since January... Temps can drop to 0°F from time to time, but not for very long , but this year we had a pretty long and frosty winter with strong and icecold winds from the north east ( literally from Russia/Siberia). We are glad the winds have turned today and we are getting milder air from the southwest, the forecast predicted temps up to 68°F for the end of the week... from zero to almost 70 within a few days is very unusual. As energy (not matter in which form ) is pretty expensive here I went a bit crazy about insulating my house when I remodeled in 2010-2012. It already had 25" brick walls that were bone dry and we put another 4" of woodwool insulation on the outside and covered it with a membrane to keep the critters out and larch wood siding. There are also programs where to subsidize home owners that are improving their insulation and we also replaced all windows with three pane ones. Both the roof and the concrete basement floor are insulated with another 8" of styrofoam , the floors have 3 " of screed . My heat tubing is run in the screed so we are mostly barefooting throughout the winter. I used the old 2 pane windows I removed from the house as garage windows, the leftover insulation went into the garage aswell. It never freezes in there , I guess the radiant heat from the house is just enough to keep it above freezing even when we have a real cold speel like this one... I never would have thought it could get this cold in the Southern parts of the US. I´ll keep my fingers crossed for you guys, hope you all make it through this alright!
sympathies to all affected. Folks used to living and dealing with cold climate conditions in the winter( 20 minutes from the Canadian border for me, 10 minutes to one of the great lakes.....Hello lake effect snow) have, as a means of survival, developed a " throw it at us, we'll deal with it" mentality when it comes to the crazy ass cold and snow. Mind you, this mentality has been keenly developed, in some cases over many generations. We do it as a survival mechanism, mentally and physically. We find ways to cope: hotrods, sports( weird ones, involving going fast down hills, on sticks) drinking , drugging, pestering the wenches..... At the end of it all comes spring and then summer .....The best four days of the year!!!!!
I had a very good friend from Houston who served with dad during WW2. He once commented to me "I'll never live north of Houston..Too Damn Cold!!" I bet ole Buzz would be cursing a blue streak right now!
Hoa Wela - "Hot Metal" I had to do some research on this, Hawaii Hot Rod history I'll be watching that tonight on Amazon prime. HRP
Last Sunday was pretty mild around noon, about 28°F but we went back to 5°F at night. This night was the same with a little snow, but it got a lot warmer in the morning, like in the 40s and the snow is pretty much all gone by now. The 55 got a good wash today, I usually avoid to drive it in the salt, but my wife´s Diesel wouldn´t start below 0, so the Chevy came out of hibernation... it´s only transportation, right?
You Northern guys may be used to this, but in Muskogee, Oklahoma minus 15 degrees and eight inches of snow ain’t that common! Me, I have several ricks of wood, fire place 3 generators, two four wheel drive vehicles,( running) food for a month, ice box full of beer, full hot tub! But most the folks here , especially the young adults ,in trailer houses, are screaming “ foul!” Lol It is kinda hilarious..... but you Yankees can come get your weather... anytime, now! Bones
A lot of you guys live in area's where it's a normal winter weather, This frigid weather is not normal in Texas and surrounding states feeling the impact of single digits. It's cold here but thankfully not what a lot of people are dealing with. HRP
No city water service since this morning. Last summer I started saving the gallon jugs from my ice tea purchases. I've got 8 empty jugs sitting here because I never filled them for emergency water. We are melting the snow from the snowdrift in my driveway so we can flush the toilet. The city must have had some street salt trucked in because I can tell some intersections had been salted for the first time ever. I drove my son to his workplace to check the power, etc. 10 minutes later, on the way back, we saw a pickup that wasn't there on the way out smashed against the cement wall of the underpass. Ice storms likely Wednesday but we should get above freezing to thaw out on Saturday. The daughter-in-law and grandbabies in Houston have a blackout and it ain't rolling. She didn't know how to turn on the gas fireplace so I talked her through that and told her to have everyone camp out in the living room in front of the fire.
It's a new ice age..... Going down to -5° tonight... I better go shovel the snow so I can get to work in the morning....
Wait til it hits 108* at 70% humidity for 45 days and no rain......That's when we are in our norm. It was -14 this morning, we don't get that cold here. Supposed to be 54* by the weekend.
I guess they are right about climate change,more extremes each way. Im ok for heating,but Im going to put central air in this year. It can get really hot and humid up here in the summer. Best to be prepared.
Well, there went my swap meet money--frozen/busted sprinkler system, ruptured main water line, and water that ran from early last night until my neighbor told me about it today around noon. Water bill? But, this is just hardware-I feel so badly for folks that have to have electricity and water to live. Have heard about some elderly needing power to keep their ventilation machines and other equipment powered, a matter of life and death. Being a native, I've seen it before and the reaction today is no different than then--do nothing until it hits, then yell why didn't we do anything before? S. Texas ain't so lovely at 9 degrees.
It's global warming caused by the hoodlums from the H.A.M.B. and their damn hot rods burning all that fossil fuel!
I say yes to more electric cars. Why you ask heck more fossil fuel for me to burn Oh the temp today was 40 degrees above zero thank you but still not good for topless roadster rides.
That’s why I prepare, started last week! They gave us a whole weeks warning! I check all my stuff, gather wood, when to the gas station and filled up 25 gallons of gasoline. Made sure the motorhome was full of diesel. (10,000 watt diesel generator), test started my small generator,(5,000 watts) , fired off my Bobcat welder( 10,000 watts) , sent the wife to buy extra groceries. Checked my statch of batteries. Covered outside faucets with boxes. Charged the batteries on my four wheel drive vehicles and drove them around the block.Checked on my neighbors, wired his generator. Then sit back and waited for it to come. My house is set up with a fireplace that is ducted all through the house, it was 15 below last night and my electrical heat never came on! Wood power! I monitor social media, in case some elderly.....you know older than me........ need any help. That’s what the small generator is for! We will get through this! Bones
We had some lunatics playing the worlds longest hockey game outside last week for charity (252 hrs). Temperatures got down to -40F at times and it was getting down below -60F at night with wind chill. They couldn't keep the pucks from shattering. Hope you guys down south get your power back soon at the very least.
Its plenty cold here in New Orleans as well. Not like the North way up on the other side of I-10, but cold enough! It was in the mid 20s here last night with a stout wind. I have spent a few winters up around Rockford and Green Bay and understand cold. The thing here is our entire culture(including me!) implodes and goes into full panic mode at the hint of an impending frigid event of around 30 or less degrees. roads close. Business comes to screeching halt, people go into an emergency food and staple buying stampede The news media goes into a doomsday reporting frenzy, rushing around town seeking a patch of ice to stand near for the latest "Live from the scene report." All levity aside. I did have a very close call many years ago that could have cost me and two friends our lives. While out duck shooting on the last day of Pulldoo Duck season we became stranded over night during a sudden winter storm that came screaming in at dark and lasted all night. I say duck shooting instead of hunting because pulldoo ducks are the dumbest of all waterfowl hereabouts. The only thing dumber that day was the trio of us out pursuing these feathered creatures. Our boat motor sucked up a charge of floating seeds in the cooling system and overheated. that left one fellow in the boat a quarter mile from my buddy and me who were sitting on a wooden stick built blind about 4 feet off the water with no wind break or cover of any kind. We sat there until seven oclock the next morning when a boat passed by and picked us up. I surely thought I would expire from exposure that night. As it turned out 11 people did succumb to the frigid conditions that night across the state. Most were "outdoorsmen" as we thought we were and did not check the weather or made other foolish decisions that cost them dearly. The cold is no joke and I am very situational aware regarding the weather since that experience.
This photo is from 1958 New York state route 23 between Grand Gorge NY (My hometown) Stamford NY. It was a two day snow storm both plows drove off the road in a bad drift with a milk truck following. My dad told me it was at least another day before the road was open one way. They used a truck mounted snow blower to get the road open. Everyone went to see it. This bottle necked everything even more. This is the area today,
Yup. Nebraska in my high school years. -80°F wind chill one year .. but Nebraska is used to that sh*t. Had our cars all plugged in, block heaters/pan heaters .. tons of wood stacked for the stove to kick heat. I get it. So did Iowans. Texas has every climate, fellas. Usually 0°F is followed the next day with 70°F sunshine, then 45°F rain, and the 4th day with 60°F golf & cannonball sized hail. Rinse & repeat .. welcome to Texas. This week long teens, & zero crap .. blows. Our sunscreen supply does us no good. Hang in there, Dan. So far Allen, Texas .. north of Dallas, has been a-okay good. I feel your pain .. but here I am blackout free, and not affected. I'll go eat yellow snow now .. if it helps. Otherwise, I'll keep my trap shut. .. but good luck brother. Hope it ends well, and soon. Fugg' this sh*t. - that lucky sonofa' b*tch in Allen/Jamie
Not to be a Monday morning quarterback, but this thing is awesome. I've only needed it 3-4 times in the 6 years I've been in this house, but one of them was a 4 day stretch of a winter storm, no power, neighbors all had burst pipes and all kinds of issues. My house didn't skip a beat. I highly recommend getting one.
Those things are great, but you can buy a Bobcat welder and trailer for less and you can use the welder! I know that means nothing to some people, but that’s the way I went.I wired a cord to plug into my 10,000 watt Bobcat generator and plug it into my 50 amp receptical I wired for my motorhome in my garage. That way everything in my house is powered. I usually turn my hot water heater down to 110 or off, just to ease the burden on the generator. But everything thing else works just fine. My neighbor has a huge propane powered generator he got from a hospital that was updating and he has a 250 gallon propane tank next to it..... thought about just running a extension cord over to his! Lol Bones
The Jalopy Journal
