Ice Storm is not Cool!

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... It's freaking cold! :-P

Our pipes are trying to freeze, and we're doing all that we can to keep that from happening, but if no one hears from me for a couple of days, don't worry! We have gas heating, so we'll be just fine even if we should lose power :-) Hopefully the worst is over for us, but just in case, you know?

Those of you like me who are being hit by this 30-state strong storm (the figure provided by Headline News' Robin Meade), or worse, please be safe, don't take unnecessary risks in traveling, and stay warm!

~Zoe

Comments

Good luck to you

and I hope you ride out the storm with no problems.
Mind you, to us northerners it doesn't seem like much of a storm... but I suppose it all depends on what you are used to. *grin*

BTW, it's warmed up here where I live. It's only minus 18'C tonight. Two nights ago it was minus 37'C.

Some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue

Spent two winters in Fairbanks.

While I won't be driving around till things are better, this storm was really not much in comparison. I just looked at the weather up there and they are having a "Chinook Wind", so maybe the ice will be running in water for a bit. When I was there 66-68, -40 was the norm this time of the year. It got to -55 once, and everything ground to a halt.

Don't mean to make light of anyone's situation. It is +32f here in balmy Painesville,OH but supposed to be 9f tonight. By design, all the pipes in this house are on interior walls so I am not concerned about freezing. Sunday, my roomate and I walked about 100 yards out onto Lake Erie, but thankfully when the ice got wet, my tears turned her around without too much loss of dignity.

Much Peace

Khadijah

This Morning's Paper...

...said that the high yesterday (Feb 1) in Fairbanks was +20ºF, warmer than Amarillo, Texas (+10º). I wonder how often that happens.

Eric (in San Francisco)

How often that happens...

Puddintane's picture

Lots.

Amarillo is in the continental interior, and subject to the bottom end of the Arctic Express.

Fairbanks is moderately near to a largish body of water (The Chena and Tanana Rivers), which tends to moderate temperatures on average.

Then too, Amarillo tends to be arid, which discourages cloud formation, so radiative cooling is likely to suck heat out of the ground.

Fairbanks tends, on the other hand, to be cloudy, and the clouds insulate the land from the cold of outer space. And of course, in Alaska, they can see the Commies mooning them from Russia, which makes their blood boil.

Cheers,

Puddin'

A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style

-

Cheers,

Puddin'

A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style

Degrees of measurement

>It's only minus 18'C tonight. Two nights ago it was minus 37'C.

Did you mean to use degrees in Celsius, or Fahrenheit? Seems to me that -37 degrees Celsius is just a tad bit low (unless you are on a glacier somewhere).

That's normal...

Those temps Brute quoted are pretty normal for this time of year. Depends where ya are...

Western Canada has had temps like that a few times this winter, if I'm not mistaken. Ontario hasn't been totally free either, but I think -25C has been the coldest I've seen this year for the province - and that was in Ottawa.

PB

Degrees Celsius

Yup, that minus 37 is Celsius, not Fahrenheit. Converting it to fahrenheit, it would be -34.6'F, and like PB says, that's pretty normal for this time of year. As for where I am, I'm on the north shore of lake Superior in Ontario. (That's part of Ontario that the media ignores. Mind you, the media ignores about 60% of Ontario :^)

Some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue

-40 C and -40 F are the same.

It is odd, because in the late 60's, when I was in Fairbanks, Minot, North Dakota was regularly as cold or colder than Fairbanks. A place called Burwash Landing, or Watkins Lake was about the coldest place around, dipping to -45-55 regularly. So, for my wild spirit, this bad weather brings back pleasant memories.

K

Just woke up...

The weather channel last night said that the blizzard warning had expired. I woke up this morning and I'm wondering how I'm going to get my car out. The back of my house must be where the wind is hitting, because my windows are completely covered in snow, and now the Weather Channel says we have blizzard warnings until tonight! They need to make up their minds!
Stay warm, Zoe! I'm thinking of ya!

Wren

Work

One advantages of working at a hotel, I came to work yesterday about 3:30 and I'm not leaving until tomorrow.

Stay warm and safe everyone. If you are in the middle of this storm, don't go anywhere unless you have to.

I'd go build a snowman, but I'd be one before I finished.

Ice Storm

I have to agree that this storm isn't cool. I got home last night after we got around 10" of snow. I left work at 4:30PM and got home around 5:00PM. Not bad for a normally 7 to 10 minute drive. I then spent the next 2 hours snowblowing. I got about 3/4's of mine done and then started in on my neighbors driveway (I always do her's. My dad had told me on my 13th birthday, always do one good deed for that day. Then I can be as nasty for the rest of it. I always do as my dad told me. LOL). I went back to my yard to get more gas and went back to her house again. About 5 minutes later, the drive unit on my snowblower died. Just my luck.

I have arthritus in my knees, lower back, upper back and in my left shoulder. Because of this, I really can't shovel to easily. This morning I called around my whole county here in central Massachusetts, and not one dealer has a snowblower for sale. The place where I bought mine in 2002 said they can come by next week and then it will take them around 10 more days to get it back to me. I had this problem around 3 years ago. My snow blower is a Toro that was built back in 1990 and I bought it in January of 2002. As old as this machine is, after turning on the key, giving it 10 pushes on the primer, it starts first pull every time.

In our city, after the major blizzard of 1978, they instituted a new policy. Anyone who has a sidewalk in front of their property, has to clear it within 10 hours of any snowfall or get fined. I never had heard of this law until the winter of 1994 as I got a ticket for not clearing the sidewalk. I happened to be in the Mediterranean on an aircraft carrier during that storm. My dad never told me about it and it had never been in the newspaper about it until 2 years ago. This morning, using 2 Marc leg power, I shoved the snowblower along the sidewalk. That is all that I will do for now. My nephew Jeff is coming up later to plow me out.

I hope everyone has a better storm than I am having. Unfortunately, I have to go back to work tomorrow.

Marc

Florida

Somebody has to live here so why not me , we turned on our A/C yesterday as we hit 75 and they asy we are going to repeat that today.That is why I left NY all those year ago . All kidding aside please be safe and don't work to hard at snow removal , get the kid down the street do it for you
HUGS & KISSES RICHIE2

I said goodbye to that mess 32 years ago.

RAMI

I grew up in New York (yeah Queens NY), spent 4 years in Binghamton N.Y. (Go Harpur College), 3 years in Buffalo, NY, had to climb out my window on a snow bank to leave my apartment because the door was blocked, and a few more years in NY. After the Blizzard in February or March 1978, we finalized our plans to move to FLorida.

Today its 85 degrees out and sunny. Come on down. The beaches are great, and Ft. Lauderdale is a very accepting area.

Hope all of you in the colder states, I guess the remaining 49, keep safe and be well.

As for pipes, make sure that there is alway water running through them. Each faucet should drip, drip, drip.

RAMI

RAMI

Cold, even for us...

...in the "Valley Of The Sun" - Phoenix. Under a freeze warning last night, tonight and tomorrow night. 32 degrees at 7:00 AM today.
Did someone say "global warming"?? Hmmmm....

Florida

You really do NOT want to know how cold it is on the central east coast of FL.

I really do feel for you. I have only wintered in ontario CA for a few weeks. must really suck

James

Ice on, Ice off !

I was up until 3:00 AM this morning watching the progress of the Big Storm and amazingly just as it cleared Illinois, the big nasty front, split in two, one half going due East, and the other going straight into Michigan. Cleveland and points east to about Erie, PA seemed to miss the brunt of it, though we did get about 4 inches, and a skiff of Ice, where I live near Painesville. I went to bed thinking that once again the media had sucked me in with hype. Amazingly, this morning the part that had gone to Michigan, turned around and went back through Michigan and came through Cleveland, and socked us a good one. We went out and played in the snow and ice, and as we were coming home we went through a drift that nearly left us needing to call a tow truck.

I feel so sorry for those who can not find their car, or have to use windows to get out of their houses. I suppose that you can say that I have entered my age of irresponsibility or my second childhood.

Khadijah

I won't even tell you what the weather's like in San Francisco

Yes I will, the sun is shining, visibility is around one hundred miles today. It looks as though you could touch the Farallon Islands, Point Reyes is clearly visible some fifty miles away and the temperature is around sixty eight degrees. People ask, why do I want to live where I do? Well duh, Arecee

Speaking

Of the weather I do hope and pray that all of our ladies down under are well considering that Cat 5 that just hit them.

Hugs!
Grover

We lost power from 7PM

We lost power from 7PM yesterday until 2PM today... We are entirely electric, and the temperature dropped to 57 in the apartment. (We're lucky, we are the middle apartment and are surrounded by five others in this building...) I actually changed into a pair of leggings, jeans, and a turtleneck sweater. I stayed warm until the power came back on. It's funny how 57 can feel warm or cool depending on the time of year... Now we have two storms converging on the Ohio River Valley and a group that I'm part of has been placed on official stand by status by the county... I'll try to keep everyone updated.

Samantha

I hope you're able to

Zoe Taylor's picture

I hope you're able to weather this nastiness safely. The worst we had was the pipe feeding the refrigerator's water/ice freezing over. Our main plumbing is still working fine, even though the low here dropped to somewhere in the single-digits at one point.

I love snow, but not this much. I can't wait for Spring. :-D

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I wouldn't mind the cold and

I wouldn't mind the cold and snow if it were just snow. This ice storm was bad... My neighbor came over (the power surge when the power came back on fried the primary hard drive and her cd rom drive in her computer) to ask me a question that I've already answered four times. I looked at the stoop in front of my apartment and it was a solid sheet of ice... I called the property manager and discussed it with him, and he said they are out of salt, as is every vendor around here... I want to move to Florida... (Although for the weather we're having, a nice warm, baby pink snow suit wouldn't be a bad idea...)

Samantha

I'm sorry to say...

Puddintane's picture

...that we can probably look forward to more of the same as time goes on. The heating of the Arctic creates a high pressure area that pushes the Arctic jet stream further south and brings weather we might expect to see up in the Canadian north considerably farther south. I used to live in Edmonton, where the parking spaces have electrical outlets so you can plug in your car to prevent the engine block from freezing solid during the day. One gets used to it. I'd lived in Salt Lake City, Utah, for five years, so I knew about snow and ice, but Alberta snow and ice beat Utah snow and ice six ways from Sunday. Still, it was interesting, and at least it wasn't Fort Smith, just over the line into the Northwest Territories, where it was a good bit colder.

Cheers,

Puddin'

A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style

-

Cheers,

Puddin'

A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style

It snowed O.O

Zoe Taylor's picture

We were only supposed to get a 'dusting', but ... well...


:-)

It's kind of pretty, but it's made the roads a total nightmare here. We're just not used to this much snow this fast around here. State and local police are out in full force trying to keep people safe, and as for me, I'm staying right here where it's worm and writing. :-D

* * *

"Zoe, you are definitely the Queen of Sweetness with these Robin stories!"
~ Tychonaut

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That is a dusting...

That looks like a dusting alright...

They are calling for 1 to 3 inches of the stuff here over the weekend. Frankly I'm getting tired of the stuff... We'll have to see what actually falls from the sky tomorrow. I'll then believe what ever they say is happening. We have a saying here in Ohio: "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes, It;ll change; probably for the worse..."

Samantha

ICE storm

Renee_Heart2's picture

HEre in east central Missouri wher I am anyway we got 2 1/2" of Ice with 1/2 inch of snow this IS an offical repport by me as a storm spotter (not chasser mind you just spotter). I-70 the closed close to over 100 miles of it close to 200. because of blizzerd conditins west of St. Louis to Kansas City, MO. School was clossed for a week because of the ice & my driveway is STILL ice covvered.
Love Samantha Renee Heart

Love Samantha Renee Heart

Record lows

Zoe Taylor's picture

Fayetville, about two hours north of me, hit record lows (twenty below!) last night/this morning, with upwards of two feet of snow.

Our average seasonal snowfall for an entire winter is ten inches, and they got that in one day. We got a bit more of a 'dusting' again by comparison, closer to four to six inches, but we did hit whiteout conditions while it was falling, which I can never remember happening since I've lived here (about 26 years - basically my whole life).

Anyway, someone asked me to check in and let everyone know we're okay after the latest bout with old man winter. :-D

The crazy part is, it's supposed to reach the low 60s by Sunday ;-)

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