Smallwheels

Are you ready for the super deep freeze? Dangerous cold weather is headed toward the middle of the country eastward. I've been out in minus twenty degree weather for a brief time. I stepped outside into minus twenty-two degree weather once just to experience it. Depending on where you are you might experience minus thirty degree temperatures in the next few days.

Go to the store now and buy candles, heating oil, propane, and some catalytic heaters if you can find them. You're lucky if you have a wood stove in these areas. Usually when it gets that cold in the Northeast power lines will snap when lots of trees collapse onto them. It also depends on how much snow comes with this system.

https://iceagenow.info/2014/01/histor...united-states/

Be careful.

gerv 

Most of the power lines snapping occurs when it's a tad warmer. The lines get freezing rain building up and the weight and wind causes the lines to snap.

But... yeah... a wood stove would be great. If you had a good supply of wood and extra money for increased home insurance.

Roody

We've been having minus zero F temps at night lately. They said it might be minus 20 by Monday.

B. Carfree

Around here we got our cold weather last month. We almost set a new record low when it reached -10F; the record is -12F. It was glorious since the city doesn't have the equipment to deal with snow removal, so the motorists were confounded for a few days. It was nice and quiet, even near the freeway, as people drove much less and did so at much lower than normal speeds. Unfortunately, it's almost all melted and gone now.

About those pro wood burning comments. UGH! I don't know about what happens back east, but here on the west coast when we have cold weather we also have high pressure systems and minimal air mixing. That means that all that soot and those particulates that people pump into the air by burning wood stay put until they are bio-filtered out by someone's lungs (yes, I exaggerate). Last month, my city was in violation of the federal clean air act for about half the month. Our local air pollution district wouldn't even ban burning even though we had very few power outages. They were concerned that people's utility bills would be too high if they were not allowed to burn. Talk about externalizing costs! Burning wood in an urban/suburban environment is barbaric, IMO.

Roody

Tomorrow we get high winds from the northwest with air temps around zero F. Being Michigan, that means we also get lake effect snow. Every other place gets that cold clear weather, we get clouds and snow. But I love it!

wipekitty

Here, they're saying -28F with -60 to -65F windchill...geez.

I've got the Armageddon Box and winter camp gear set, just in case we lose heat and/or power. Across the river in Minnesota, the governor has cancelled all public school in the state for Monday. I guess this is serious! If it happens again, I'm getting better gear.

Machka 

We've been experiencing very hot weather in the middle of our country.
https://www.weatherzone.com.au/

I just wish some of it could move a bit further south ... so far the summer in the south has been rather chilly.

mister

We burn wood and use space heaters at night. We ran the heater for a week during last month's cold snap that came through and our electric bill went from $60 the prior month to $270 the next! Imagine running it for a month; we would probably have a $1000 electric bill. No thanks.

no motor?

Camping and bicycling have provided me with a lot of the stuff I'd need to survive this, but none of the desire to. I'm ready for warmer weather now!

Isaiahc72

So is anyone else planning on making their commute still? I am

GodsBassist

Yes, but it's only supposed to get down to 4 here, not the crazy -20 they're looking at in the midwest.

gerv 

However, we just had a blizzard here in eastern Canada (Newfoundland) with temps about -15C, wind gusts up to 80kph and 35 cm of snow.

On top of that this morning the electricity blew for the entire island. We got lights 12 hours later. Temperature indoors at that time was 12C.

wipekitty

If it's too cold to bike, it's too cold to work. But that's easy for me to say: I have the week off! Depending on the windchill, we'll still try to get our daily walk in.

I was making an appointment (at a location that is neither within walking distance nor in a bike-friendly location), and I explained to the guy on the phone that later in the week would be better because "it will be a little chilly for me to get there on Monday or Tuesday." I don't think he had any clue what I was talking about.

B. Carfree

You say 12C like it's a bad thing.

I rarely know what the indoor temperature is during the late fall/early winter. My only indoor thermometer is a Galileo thermometer that only reads down to 16C and that ball rarely drops this time of year. I always rejoice when it falls for the first time each year and celebrate again when it appears to be down for the count. That's my own personal first sign of spring and a signal that I can stop cast off my indoor footwear.

Roody

The last time it was this cold and windy, I think in 2007, I was walking across a parking lot. A crow flying across the lot was literally blown out of the sky by the howling wind. He landed on a big chunk of ice about two feet ahead of me. Like me, the feathers on his face (whiskers in my case) were crusted in ice. I think we were equally surprised to see the other one there, when no other creatures were out and about. Of course, being a bird, he was embarrassed to fall out of the sky. He tried to play it off, like, I meant to do that. I said aloud to him, I hope your beak is no colder than mine is! I swear to god he looked me right in the eye and laughed.

Sixty Fiver

We like to call this Tuesday.

But seriously....

The east is getting some truly heinous weather the likes of which that has not been seen for 40 years and if you are not used to it, and ready for it, it can make life really hard and for some downright life threatening.

(Machka is a traitor to the cause having moved to Oz where the winters have made her soft. )

It is a balmy -14F / -21C here now with a nasty degree of windchill... this means you can run around naked for just under 5 minutes before the fun bits freeze.

Roody

So I bet you did it for only four minutes!

Sixty Fiver

I told my wife that the best way to stay warm was to get naked and not run around outside.

She remembers those Michigan winters in the 70's... it was only when she moved here that experienced anything colder and so far we have not gotten much below -20F this year and have had an inordinate amount of warmer weather and freezing rain which is not typical for us.

The neighbours, who are in their 80's said they cannot remember a winter the wet and gloomy and today we got a good dose of sunshine and clear skies which is also a sign of the mercury dropping as it gets too cold to form clouds.

Machka 

The winters here are much nicer than on the Canadian prairies ... but I'm complaining about the summers here. One of the reasons I moved to Australia was for the heat ... here it is, late afternoon in the middle of summer, and it's 12C out there. Fortunately this house is fairly well insulated which is unusual for Australia. Some places I've been ... if it were 12C outside, it would be 12C inside too.

Roody

Your wife is right. We don't get as cold because we're almost surrounded by the Great Lakes. But the trade off is that we get all that lake effect snow. Parts of the lower peninsula near Lake Michigan average over 200 inches (five meters) a year. In the upper peninsula, along the Lake Superior shore, they get over 300 inches--about the most of any non-mountainous region in North America. I live well inland in Lansing, and we get some lake effect snow, but only about 50 inches a year. We really do have an ideal climate here, if you like four distinct seasons.

wphamilton

Every time I checked the forecast for Tuesday morning, the prediction is lower 7°F and falling. That's not unusual for some of you but I got chilled Friday in 20° so I panicked a little and made a DIY handlebar windscreen to keep the wind off at least my hands and forearms. Dug out my insulated snow-suit, found my balaclava, going to prep some old shoes with plasti-dip and then I'll be ready.

Sixty Fiver

Yep... you've gone soft on us.



In Portland we would keep the house at 12C in the winter... up here we keep the house warmer (20C) for the critters who cannot tolerate those lower temps and have some zone heating to keep their areas a touch warmer.

Sixty Fiver

We average 50 inches of snow per year and don't get quite as cold as Winnipeg or Regina which are farther south... we don't have any large bodies of water to contribute to our snowfall as they do where you are.

The in-laws live in the U.P. now after spending most of their lives in Detroit... it does not get as cold but they get a lot more snow.

Roody

And yet I was reading that it's recently been almost 50C in some parts of your country. So I would be happy with 12C if I were you.

https://www.theguardian.com/weather/2...mb-towards-50c

Machka 

They make those announcements every year. I don't think it actually got that warm ... Alice Springs hit a high of 45C last week, but that's not particularly unusual.

12C is too cold, and it has been cold like this all spring and summer. Normal temps average about 22C, with some days above 30C ... and although I'd be happy with a whole summer of 30C, right now I'd be happy if the highs didn't drop below 22C for the rest of the summer. However, that's not likely to happen ... cold, cold, cold.


And while the world hears the announcements you linked to, they don't tend to hear this sort of weather news ... all taking place now in the area where we used to live in Victoria ...
https://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/v...big-blow/26303