Is it cold enough for 'ya (USA)?

[Brian Roth]

I'm sure the folks in Florida and Cali will be laughing at me.

Here in central Kansas (and down through Oklahoma and Texas) it's been stupidly cold the past week+.  Latest check around here is -8F and still dropping.  Daytime highs in positive single digits with negative overnights below zero for more days ahead.  Coldest spell I've seen in 6+ years here.

Fortunately the furnace in my little house is keeping up while running something like 10 minutes on/5 minutes off.  I suspect I'll have a heart attack when I get my bill from the gas company.  A news item I glimpsed earlier said current wholesale gas prices are 10X higher than....hmmmm...whenever.

Bri

 

[boji]

Yeah my old living space wants oil for heat, but I switched to space heaters and it costs a little less.
Maryland has seen milder winter temps this past decade, with less frequent storms that produce greater than average precipitation.

 

[pucho812]

While we out west do not have the bitter cold,  we are cold enough and the winds are high so we still have the possibility to lose the power grid.  If by chance a fire breaks out, it would spread rather quickly and become big news.

While I am happy we are not nearly as low temperatures as you guys are having elsewhere, we are  still have potentials that could be a huge problem.

Stay warm everyone.

 

[Brian Roth]

I actually timed this....furnace 20 mins. on/5 off.  The upcoming gas bill brought this song to mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRh0QiXyZSk

Can't figure how to sing "I owe my soul to Kansas Gas Service"

<g>

Bri

 

[ruffrecords]

We had a cold snap last week in the UK with temperatures in Scotland reaching as low as -23 degrees Celsius (-9F) but fortunately we are now thawing.

Coldest I rememeber since 1963.

Cheers

Ian

 

[shabtek]

i started burning used motor oil  mixed with sawdust

 

[JohnRoberts]

I really hate cold weather... moved south 30+ years ago. Coldest I ever was was guarding empty buildings in the Army at Ft Riley, KS back in the 70s,,,, Too cold to take my gloves off to drink the brandy in my pocket.

I really hate this global warming  : . Snow sucks but freezing rain really sucks. Mix freezing rain with weak, old, very tall, pine trees results in branches loaded with heavy ice breaking off and falling from some height.

In the attached picture we can see the latter pile of several branches that dropped this afternoon, and in the background of the same picture the branch that dropped this morning (cut into three pieces). This morning's (6" diameter) branch was hung up on my power line, until I cut it in half with my chainsaw, freeing it to drop the rest of the way down. The bigger near pile of branches  reached the ground pretty much directly, but my neighbors phone line is now sagging and not passing signal since one or more heavy branches banged it on the way down.

firing up my chainsaw in 20 degree weather to make sawdust is not my idea of fun in Hickory...But I needed to get the road by my house passable two different times today.

JR
 

 

[Ricardus]

Unprecedented weather event crippling massive parts of our country which never get this kind of stuff.

I'm sure it's not climate change related.

Nothing to see here.

Move along... move along...

 

[crazydoc]

Saturday was the most snow in Seattle in 52 years (Jan 27,1969 14.9") when I was in basic at Ft Lewis. We were told "It hardly ever snows here." That's why CS gas training was almost a relief, since it was inside a bunker, but overnight bivouac was not much fun.

My daughter lives near Duluth MN. -24 Saturday night (wind chill -40), but a heat wave today of +1. She seems to enjoy it.

I think the most important is to let your faucets drip all night - broken frozen pipes are no fun when they thaw.

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Been sleeping on the floor at my parents' house just outside Manchester UK during lockdown...  Brass balls and Monkeys didn't come close to describing the night before last!

 

[fazer]

-14F in Elizabeth last night.  But we see worse in Colo.  Lots of cathart layers makes it ok.  50 this weekend will feel like summer. 


Sleeping on the floor does not sound good Winston.  But Sometimes the cold will snap me out of a funk in a good way.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Saturday was the most snow in Seattle in 52 years (Jan 27,1969 14.9") when I was in basic at Ft Lewis. We were told "It hardly ever snows here." That's why CS gas training was almost a relief, since it was inside a bunker, but overnight bivouac was not much fun.

My daughter lives near Duluth MN. -24 Saturday night (wind chill -40), but a heat wave today of +1. She seems to enjoy it.

I think the most important is to let your faucets drip all night - broken frozen pipes are no fun when they thaw.

Letting faucets drip is an old school trick. The ground and water pipes running underground don't freeze, but exposed uninsulated pipes in crawlspaces under houses can...

I was surprised a few years ago when I discovered my back yard faucet was frozen solid one morning. I was most surprised because the pipe feeding that faucet was coming from inside my unheated laundry room. I have since then added some thermostatically controlled heat tape wrapped around the cold water pipe inside the laundry room so no more freezing hazard.

I also advocate using the foam outdoor faucet covers that help prevent freezing, cheap insurance.

Outdoor temperature is now 17' and I feel lucky/prepared. Tomorrow night is forecast for lows only in the 20s and after that I expect to get started seriously on my garden (no more hard freezes I hope). This morning I covered my few already growing winter plants (mostly garlic, and a couple broccoli seedlings) with bubble wrap and then a layer of landscaping cloth. I have some onions and a few early peppers and tomato plants already started growing in plastic buckets that I bring into my laundry room at night. Today I didn't even put them outside, too f'n cold. I'm itching to get my raised bed gardens going for this coming season.

Due to the cold weather I kept my sump pump turned off for the last few days. The ground water down in my crawl space is not frozen but the cheap vinyl discharge hose gets brittle even at above freezing temperatures and one sprung a leak (blowout) last week in the mid 30's.

JR

PS: I had an electric blanket with a broken microprocessor controller, I recently hardwired it to an old lamp dimmer... sweet, only 20W max but toasty with dimmer down at 30% or less.

 

[Brian Roth]

Today the "Southwest Power Pool" (SPP) which manages the grid in an area from the Canada border then south into parts of Texas briefly ordered rolling blackouts.

A map on their home page shows the region they cover.

https://spp.org/

That has never happened in their entire history (unlike Cali and other areas).  Most of Texas is on it's own grid and IS having rolling blackouts.

http://www.ercot.com/eea_info/show/26464

There are numerous wind farms in this region, but many of the turbines have frozen over and are not operating.  Some solar sites in the region, but no sunlight to speak of for over a week.  Much of the electric generation plants use natural gas, but wellheads in the fields and valves in the distro system have frozen.  Spot prices for natural gas have gone from $3.00 per 1 million BTU to as high as $600.

So far, my elderly Mom in OKC and I (in Kansas) have had no outages but overnight lows will be something like -14F tonight.  Both of our houses have natural gas furnaces....which also rely on electrical power to operate.

Scary stuff.

Bri

 

[FarisElek]

I'm sure the folks in Florida and Cali will be laughing at me.

Here in central Kansas (and down through Oklahoma and Texas) it's been stupidly cold the past week+.  Latest check around here is -8F and still dropping.  Daytime highs in positive single digits with negative overnights below zero for more days ahead.  Coldest spell I've seen in 6+ years here.

Fortunately the furnace in my little house is keeping up while running something like 10 minutes on/5 minutes off.  I suspect I'll have a heart attack when I get my bill from the gas company.  A news item I glimpsed earlier said current wholesale gas prices are 10X higher than....hmmmm...whenever.

Bri

I'm in Austin. It's 12 degrees and 200,000 are without power (including myself). I'm under several blankets with winter clothes on. My house has a fireplace so we were okay today but it was definitely cold. Highways are closed and there is cars stuck all over the city.
The roommates and I drank and played monopoly almost all business are closed. Very strange weather. We heard that temperatures haven't gotten this low in 70 years and there hasn't been this much snow since 1989.

We are also apparently close to losing the entire states power grid.


Ryan

 

[crazydoc]

I was surprised a few years ago when I discovered my back yard faucet was frozen solid one morning. I was most surprised because the pipe feeding that faucet was coming from inside my unheated laundry room. I have since then added some thermostatically controlled heat tape wrapped around the cold water pipe inside the laundry room so no more freezing hazard.

If it's going to be close to zero or below, I also open the cabinet doors where the pipes run through the outside walls.

Outdoor temperature is now 17' and I feel lucky/prepared. Tomorrow night is forecast for lows only in the 20s and after that I expect to get started seriously on my garden (no more hard freezes I hope). This morning I covered my few already growing winter plants (mostly garlic, and a couple broccoli seedlings) with bubble wrap and then a layer of landscaping cloth. I have some onions and a few early peppers and tomato plants already started growing in plastic buckets that I bring into my laundry room at night. Today I didn't even put them outside, too f'n cold. I'm itching to get my raised bed gardens going for this coming season.

I can usually plant my garden by the beginning of May with a growing season through September, long enough to get tired of harvesting.

So far, my elderly Mom in OKC and I (in Kansas) have had no outages but overnight lows will be something like -14F tonight.  Both of our houses have natural gas furnaces....which also rely on electrical power to operate.

My power goes out at least 10 times a year, usually for a few minutes to a few hours, but once was out for several days (lines down in the mountains from the pineapple express.) I bought 2 cheap generators when I moved here (3200W) and wired a 220v socket at the house and another at the pump house to plug them in to.

If the power goes out while the furnace (propane) is running, the blower stops, the residual heat rises and trips the high limit switch, and the furnace won't come back on again until the switch is reset - it took me a while to figure that out.

I'm sorry for you folks that almost never have to go through this kind of weather - it's really tough because it's hard to be prepared for something that probably won't happen.

 

[CJ]

not as much snow as 2019 here in Oly WA, 

pretty much melted with the 40 degree temps, no big deal, not like midwest where you can die going to get the mail or if you leave a window open at night.

when the ground gets covered with snow for a few days, you see birds flying all over the place looking for food and staying warm by flying, as soon as some soil splotches open up, they get fed. put a feeder out with some peanuts and within minutes had several species dropping in for a bite. blue jays are the greediest on most obnoxious.

rode the mountain bike to the hardware store at night in the snow, plenty of traction but had to ride on the sidewalk, cars could not see the center line so they over corrected and drove over the bike lane,

today we had to bake and dip some transformers out in the back yard,

 

[JohnRoberts]

I saw the sun come out this morning for the first time in a week. Outside temp has warmed up to 16'.

My heated greenhouse inside my laundry room is down to 40' this morning but it only has 100W heat element.

My indoor/outdoor plant buckets were only inside the unheated laundry room and may have got frosted last night. [edit- just moved the buckets into my bathtub. They will get indirect sun light, and warmth. The two buckets of onion plants all look good but i think I lost a couple pepper/tomato sprouts. /edit]

JR

[edit- how are our forum members from TX doing? reports of electricity blackouts are not good... /edit]

 

[Rochey]

Here in Dallas, TX -- no power cuts for our house yet, but plenty of homes in the area are losing power for 6 hours at a time or more.

Temps this morning are 7F / -14C - some of the pipes froze yesterday for us. I don't think they cracked/burst.

5" of snow or so, but frankly, folks here have no idea how to drive in it.

I am beginning to wonder if this weather may slow the spread of covid, as everyone hunkers down at home.

 

[hodad]

There are numerous wind farms in this region, but many of the turbines have frozen over and are not operating.  Some solar sites in the region, but no sunlight to speak of for over a week.  Much of the electric generation plants use natural gas, but wellheads in the fields and valves in the distro system have frozen. 
Bri

It's worth noting that wind generation, in spite of the panic and finger-pointing of Rick Perry on Fox News, is actually holding up its end of the bargain.  Texas's electrical system is not designed to handle events like this storm.  It's also not got extensive connections with the grids of other states, which makes it a lot harder to get power from elsewhere. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

I'll tell my niece in Houston TX that is currently without electricity to disregard Fox news (easy when power is shut off).

According to a quick search something like 1.4M Houston customers are without power.

This explanation sounds like a little deflection... don't blame windmills.

The main factors: Frozen instruments at natural gas, coal and even nuclear facilities, as well as limited supplies of natural gas, he said. “Natural gas pressure” in particular is one reason power is coming back slower than expected Tuesday, added Woodfin.

I certainly believe they could be seeing shortages of natural gas with the current anti-fossil fuel policy and increased NG demand due to cold weather. I'd be curious to learn more about instruments "freezing" at nuclear and coal power plants. While this arctic weather system is far from normal.


I would embrace more use of modern cycle nuclear power generation. I am not calling for more coal (my local utility's clean coal power plant is burning NG), but I'd appreciate some more common sense. It is the nature of modern discourse to suggest (too) easy answers to complex issues.

I don't blame the wind farms alone but TX seems to have dropped the ball on managing their overall energy needs. It seems like just yesterday TX was bragging about how much energy they got from renewable sources, maybe that is why they are now getting criticized. 

JR