Brr

[pebblewurm]

Weather in San Francisco is kinda like Warsaw- 50F and raining. But it's the first rain of the year, a free carwash and washing the (literal) scum off of the sidewalks. And, lots of snow in the Sierras to hopefully melt next spring and summer. Not a good time to travel...

 

[us56456712]

We got a heavy wet snow blizzard on Wednesday afternoon and we just got the power back on (Saturday noon). We had to use lake water for dishes and toilet flush. We have an electric stove so we warmed up meals on the wood stove top. No cell service here so we were off grid using candles and flashlights. Needless to say, no turkey or pies here. Yesterday I finished cutting downed tress out from our mile access road and today I cleared about 25% of my snowlike trail. I cut out about 15 deadfalls so far. My wife is going to make me an apple pit today as everything is still laid out to make it. Yeah.

 

[horsefarmer]

I feel for you, Our power was out 4.5 days last summer after a huge storm knocked down thousands of trees Northwest of us. No worry about heat, but keeping our chest freezers and fridge cold was a problem. Bagged ice soon became "rare" and generators sold out quickly. I have a small 6.5 hp generator we picked up on sale at Aldi's supermarket a decade ago. After setting, carb was plugged and engine would not run. Nothing to do but pull it off and clean it. Got it running and it was our lifeline. I even jury rigged a plug on our well water pump so we could have water. There was power only 5 mi away so a gas station and restaurant were available. Got a pretty good system going and was even able to run the TV for news a couple hours a day. Kept me pretty busy shuffling extension cords and was nice when power was restored!
Back in the 70's I lived in Gladstone, MI, our city owned coal power plant failed in Winter and it took a day and a half to fix it. We were lucky and there was power just 10 mi away and spent time riding around and hanging out at the mall and restaurants. Our house got really cold (45 deg F) as we had no wood heat or other back up power source. I have always had wood heat ever since and have an inverter to run our wood furnace fan in emergency with a car battery.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

Back in '98 we got a little bit of ice...

Believe it or not, it took a minute to get power back.

 

[us56456712]

We are in the midst of another blizzard. So much fresh snow that my German Short hair dog jumped off the porch and was snow locked half way up his sides. The power went off again last night but is back on now. They still haven't plowed the road since the Thanksgiving storm so there will be no bike riding for a few days.

 

[us56456712]

12F. I'm going out to shovel and blow snow.

 

[us56456712]

 

[us56456712]

Downtown today

College students cross country skiing on the main drag. Picture taken through a restaurant window.

 

[horsefarmer]

Over a foot of incredibly wet heavy snow. Worst part is it rained first so crazy slippery under the snow.

 

[us56456712]

So much snow that my snowblower broke after 3 hours of trying to move it all. They didn't plow the 42 inches of snow for over a week so I had to bust through with my 4 wheel drive truck to get the snowblower to the repair shop. Unfortunately there were a lot of downed trees and debris mixed in with the snow and the front plastic of my new truck got torn off driving out. Trucks now a days aren't trucks, all plastic bumpers and I have destroyed them both. The mud flaps are torn off. They don't make trucks to contend with the conditions up here anymore, at best a new truck is an SUV. Driving out I got a 4 foot limb the size of a rolling pin jammed in my chassis. I couldn't heart rubbing on the tire because I am deaf. It blew the tire at 10 PM along the howling Lake Superior shore line. I got the tire change 90% done but the aluminum rim was frozen with the aluminum to steel oxidation to the hub and it wouldn't come off. The next morning a big deadbolt hammer and 10 minutes of pounding got it loose. These tires have been rotated every 5000 miles and they were still stuck from the road salt and water. I keep the dead bolt under the rear seat now. It's 0 F out now and we have a dozen turkeys under our bird feeder (yum). I must be getting old, last year I rode in these conditions and now I'm not.

 

[sandman]

So sorry to hear about your long cold day US . If were me I would
preferred to stock up and hibernate to that stuff melted or get a place down here for the winter .

 

[us56456712]

So sorry to hear about your long cold day US . If were me I would
preferred to stock up and hibernate to that stuff melted or get a place down here for the winter .

We are hostage here until our last old dog dies. We are looking forward to spending part the spring in warmer areas. Spring here is bad, slush, ice, mud and slow to of away. End of March and April is a good time to leave. We have been taking separate vacations so that someone can stay with the dog. Last spring I went to Mississippi. This spring I might go to Asheville, NC. I like the winter but the last one and how this one is starting is making me think twice. I used to not be bothered by it, go skiing, biking, snowshoeing or ice fishing but I only snowshoe and bike now. Three times when I went down south in the spring it snowed but the weather was balmy in comparison (twice to Tennessee and once to Arizona).

 

[RustyGold]

We have had, maybe, a half dozen nights below freezing (lowest 19°F), but it warms up to the 50s+ during the day. Not a single white flake so far and zero ice on the roads. This time of year we are usually 45mins from the snow, but the weekend before last we had to go a full hour until we got fresh snow.

I had to pull three cars out of the parking lot when we got back from our hike (iced over...about 1" thick). The general consensus is that Oregonians, especially in the Valley, can't drive worth crap in the snow. This was made worse by the complete lack of common sense with these three groups that they wanted to park in the lower lot, with their two wheel drive rigs, because they didn't want to have to walk the additional 20yds .

edit - apologies for the crap pics...my cell phone camera has a shattered lens and I never remember to take my real camera.

 

[us56456712]

That looks very much like a selective view from the U.P. of Michigan. It sucks when it can't decide if it's spring or winter. So far it's winter here, but I think it will warm up and rain and and snow and cave in roofs. Same as last year. Record cold, record precipitation, record lake levels and record black flies. Keeps the riff raft out. We like it.

 

[RustyGold]

Oregon is a battleground...the cold dry air from Alaska tries to invade from the north, warm rain (pineapple express) tries to invade from the SW. So, during the winter, it is either cold...or wet...but, rarely do the two meet. When the meteorologists think that there could possibly be a meeting of the two, the media goes nuts...Snowpocalypse! Snowmageddon! Snowragnorak! This will happen probably a dozen times, or more, between now and late March. The reality is, we may get 6-10 days worth of snow the whole winter...and maybe, 'if lucky', only 2-3 with any real accumulation. However, there will be enough videos of idiots in hilly areas of Portland sliding down icy roads, in rigs that should never have been taken out in it, bouncing off or slamming into parked cars to justify the media battlecries and set the whole charade up again for next winter. Every 10-20 years we will have an actual winter event .

 

[horsefarmer]

You guys and your winter driving stories... A couple of decades ago I overwintered in Charlotte, NC. As a yooper I thought it was great. Bought a second hand 10 speed Huffy and picked up some old steel lawn furniture and painted 'em outside as temps were in the 50's. Great. Kinda like like a Upper Michigan Fall! Funny thing is the locals were super bundled up and hurried to get inside their apartments like it was cold.
I rode that bike almost every day. Then one morning we got 3" of snow. I dug my snow brush out of the back of my 73' monte carlo and made it to the office on time. No streets were plowed and I had them to myself. At work, only myself and a guy who haled from Cleveland, Ohio were there. The phone rang off the hook with people calling in. By Noon, the sun came out and the snow vaporized! The local tv news went crazy with hundreds of fender benders reported. Videos showed cars moving way to fast with wheels locked up colliding with everything in sight!

 

[MattiThundrrr]

Even up here in Canada, where we have thirteen months of winter a year, people lose their minds duringn the first few snowfalls. About a week ago, there was a little bit, a few centimeters, not even ankle deep. Forty car pileup on the highway, a fatality, stranded motorists, highway closed for a day or two... You just have to give a little extra braking room, and be comfortable with the idea of sliding around a bit. In driving school, we practiced e brake sliding so we could learn how a vehicle responds when traction is gone. I enjoy brushing up my skills every fall. Nearly killed my Subaru last year, when "brushing my skills" became "brushing a curb"!

 

[RustyGold]

My wife 'loves to drive in the snow'...and I've been working with her on her driving skills every winter for 25years. She's finally starting to get it as long as she's in the truck...with 4wd...and studs. It boosts her confidence enough not to over think things.

Funny thing is the locals were super bundled up and hurried to get inside their apartments like it was cold.

When I moved back up here after living in SoCal for three years, I was the same way. It would be night and I'd have a sheep lined levi jacket on with jeans and I'd be out with buddies who were dressed in shorts and tank tops and I'd be shivering like crazy. They'd be, 'its nearly 70 out, why you shivering?'...ITS FREEZING! Took me over a year to re-acclimatize.

Even up here in Canada, where we have thirteen months of winter a year, people lose their minds duringn the first few snowfalls.

That is a bit shocking, I assumed everyone in Canada and the Upper MidWest was born with studs on the bottom of their feet and anti-freeze in their veins...you know, like us56456712 .

 

[Duchess]

New England is the same story with the first snow fall, though it gets a little better with each subsequent one. Some of it is the false security these morons have with (mostly bogus reactive) AWD matched to whatever barely adequate and worn all-season rubber came on it or was on sale at the discount tire shop when they were forced to buy tires after failing state inspection. The rest is the inability to drive, no interest to learn, and their priority attention on whatever insipid nonsense is on their phone. I used to love driving in the snow, but snow tires and some skill don't matter when you're stuck behind the annually-increasing numbers of idiots and the crashes they cause. Luckily, my work hours are earlier than a lot of the traffic and the current car has a track mode that kills the worthless driving nannies that are more hindrance than help for anyone who's not staring at their phone and doesn't panic when the car slides a little.

I bent a wheel sliding sideways into a curb in the snow in my 1990 Subaru Legacy. No other issue, though, and I drove with the wheel feeling mildly imbalanced for a few years until bigger brakes necessitated larger wheels.

 

[horsefarmer]

New England is the same story with the first snow fall, though it gets a little better with each subsequent one. Some of it is the false security these morons have with (mostly bogus reactive) AWD matched to whatever barely adequate and worn all-season rubber came on it or was on sale at the discount tire shop when they were forced to buy tires after failing state inspection. The rest is the inability to drive, no interest to learn, and their priority attention on whatever insipid nonsense is on their phone. I used to love driving in the snow, but snow tires and some skill don't matter when you're stuck behind the annually-increasing numbers of idiots and the crashes they cause.

Ain't it the truth. We have a couple of nearby interstates with increased 70 mph speed limits and some go much faster, and they don't let bad weather slow them down.