@f00l Maybe Texans shouldn’t drive when it’s below, say 30degF? News said first accidents occurred about 6:15am; most vehicles were traveling at high rates of speed (until suddenly they weren’t) on icy roads. Before sunrise.
@G1 My husband needs to replace a broken belt in the snow thrower. We’ve been stuck shoveling again this year because it’s been too cold for him to tinker with it. Mind you, I replaced the belt in the dryer last weekend, but it was also inside so I understand.
@mbersiam No garage/shed to protect from wind?
Thin gloves, “Grabber” hand-warmers (on the back of my hand inside the gloves seems to be best for me), and breaks.
Also, rechargeable hand warmer helps too, but too thick for inside of the gloves.
The big pileup notwithstanding (Texans absolutely should not be allowed to drive in these conditions, but you know how they are with the freedoming ), I always appreciate when we get a little chill down here. Might even have some snow within the next few days.
@compunaut Missoula. It’s late spring, early summer. I readily admit though, Missoula is arid, so even below zero, the bite probably isn’t as bad as Chicago in the teens. Also, Missoula gets the Chinook, which is kind of amazing.
Here they are talking about the world ending (I live around 2.5 hours north of the gulf of mexico). Actually it is eventually supposed to be in the 20’s with potentially snow. Raining right now but the pavement isn’t cold enough to freeze yet. What sucks is that the worst of it is supposed to be starting Sunday night and my second covid shot is Monday morning. Schools have already been preemptively cancelled - ha ha kids no snow days with zoom - I am betting my second covid shot bites the dust too.
The idiots around here can’t drive in rain. Don’t even want to see it ice or snow (actually I have seen it twice - nope nope nope don’t want to have to be in it a third time). They still tailgate and speed. Having been in a 25 car pile up years ago in a blizzard I don’t ever want to repeat that experience. Then I didn’t even realize it was on a bridge until later and I managed to stop without hitting anyone or anything. But with no place to hide I was hit by a taxi who was hit by a honda civic who was hit by an 18 wheeler and that shoved us down the highway a number of feet into a pile of cars. I’ll take major sub zero temps over what is coming here (I lived in the midwest snow belt and also worked in NW Ontario with -40 to -60 F common winter temps - both are preferable than ice storms or snow in the deep south - that being said I like snow. In an area where people know how to handle it.).
@Kyeh@mike808 I wasnt THAT fucking concerned about it on fucking friday you fucker. . Just that it was unfortunate the fuck counter probably cant parse fucking good images that should be fucking counted. And at the fucking time it was fucking cute.
Also on fucking Saturday I was not that fucking concerned and did not know that some fuckheads had intentionally designed the majority of texas’ fucked up electric grid to be independent with basically fucking worthless interconnects on a capacity level. And also been fucking stupid enough to build in no spare natural gas pipeline capacity as they shifted off fucking coal. Or any sort of heating capacity for fucking critical fucking fucked infrastructure. Even though you shouldn’t expect it to be this cold regularly its fucking happened before. So you can only assume some fuckheads let people cheap out.
I have a lot of remote coworkers in texas. Texas is going to be a disaster area. Wait till it thaws and the burst pipes start spraying water. I’m definitely not fucking happy about it. I can’t imagine its going to be cheaper to have not regulated baseline emergency heaters which their own power plant would have provided the heat for. and yearly maintenance and correct pipeline capacity. Than letting the plants go offline, prices skyrocket, and people die. Never mind the economic cost.
The whole it’s texas it never happens thing doesn’t really fly when it has. Enough fucks? Fucking shitty fucked situation. And if they had just connected to a real grid…
Some bad stuff apparently came down overnight in DFW
This is from 7 AM Saturday morning
Normally on a 7 AM on Saturday there’s not a lot of traffic and the roads are completely clear
the cold and the bad roads would’ve kept many people home so for the roads to be that obstructed at 7 AM that means that the few people out are finding the roads near impossible
@blaineg My mother lives in southern-ish Utah (Beaver), said it was going to snow this next week. Weather is getting weird all over the place. Here in Northern MN we typically have a ton of snow. Maybe 2" on the ground here, and while we are having a serious cold snap right now, it has been relatively warm all winter.
Last night broke the record for that day for lowest temp by about 15 degrees or something, and tonight we are going to be single digits, apparently something that hasn’t happened a zillion years which will again break tonight’s record (although not the overall record of lowest temp recorded here regardless of the date). Of course all the sleet is now frozen, no snow plows or salt trucks anywhere in sight - roads look pretty virgin in that respect - as if snowfall just happened - including the highways - and I know the city owns some (although not enough of them). In fact all sorts of stores are closed - grocery stores, Walmart, the mall, etc.
Some dude in shorts earlier today when it was 19 degrees out (now it is colder) was interviewed by someone who was so bundled up that if she fell over she’d have probably bounced. Had to laugh at that. We did crap like that as stupid college students in upstate NY including in several feet of snow. Flip flops too, and converse sneakers with no socks.
@Kidsandliz …and stealing [well, borrowing] cafeteria trays to use as makeshift sleds down any nearby slope- not ski slope, and not hill, just any area with any sloping land at all…
@PhysAssist Yeah we’d do that back when I was in college. And make long trains where the first couple of people in the train would eventually be sliding down the hill would end up sliding on their butts as the trays would be pushed further back. We a steep hill on campus where you’d have to bail while still going pretty fast once the track had been iced or you’d run smack into the cafeteria wall (which a few eventually always did). There would be probably or 60 or 80 people traying there at a time. At least. And trains could be a good 25+ people long.
Hey Minnesota we need you to tell stupid Mississippi that the world isn’t going to end; that shutting down the entire city isn’t what you need to do just because it is 8 degrees with maybe an inch of snow/frozen sleet no one has even tried to plow or salt despite having a handful of trucks to do both and despite the fact we are now into day 2 of this (Hint: you should have started with the highways going through town, you’d be done by now and they’d be dry). They apparently plan to wait until it melts on its own. Really???
@Kidsandliz So, you’re saying it’s not gonna melt on its own? They might have salt trucks but no salt.
Why would the taxpayers vote to raise taxes to pay for that? Small government, just welfare kings and queens milking the taxpayers again to go buy liquor on nice plowed roads. Eff that. Why do homeless people need plowed roads, anyway? Get a job clearing driveways for rich people. That will solve the unemployment problem. People are such babies wanting thrme government to do everything for them. Where are all those self-professed pull yourself up by the bootstraps American patriots? They’re all looking for a government handout to clear their streets. Useless. Send them back to their home country if they don’t like snow and cold in winter.
The cognitive dissonance, it burns (fossil fuels, of course!)
@mike808 What the heck is the welfare king and queen comment all about and what does that have to do with salting and plowing so people can drive safely to get to work? So you think no city, even in the snow belt, should tax people to pay for plows and salt trucks? Should plow roads?
They do have salt trucks with salt here as they talked about that and said they weren’t going to salt during the bad weather, just after it (they need to take lessons from northern cities about when to most effectively use their salt to prevent ice build up - I grew up in the snow belt so know about when they do it up there). And I saw 3 plows in one news shot alone so I know they have those.
@mike808@tinamarie1974 The rich people then need to pay for heated streets that run from their driveway to their place of work, their preferred grocery and liquor store. Oh wait they probably have cellars for that and don’t need to work. They live off the labor of the rest of us. LOL
Actually on a more serious note, I had a friend who bought a house with a heated driveway. It helped if the snow wasn’t deep nor the ice wasn’t that bad. It didn’t really do much if it was really, really cold or stuff was too thick or deep. She said it cost a fortune to use it. And she had kids. And snow shovels and bags of salt. She used that method. (grin).
@Kidsandliz Your sarcasm detector is faulty…
There are places (especially in the South) where every governmental idea is about lowering taxes & privatizing services, where Welfare just sucks up all the money, etc.
@compunaut Yeah I figured that out when it was too late to delete. I was reacting based on the number of people on here who trash those on SNAP, etc. and are serious about it.
My screened back porch this morning, as taken through the kitchen door, because I’m not opening the door. There’s another storm coming through (the Ozarks) tonight with more snow. I just keep looking at the forecast that says a week from now it will be close to 60 degrees.
We just got probably 8 inches last night while it was 15 degrees (without the windchill), I always thought it had to be warmer to snow so much. Anyways bone chilling cold again today, tonight’s low is -3 and I’m already
@Star2236 Hi, We here in the Great Lakes [Erie and Ontario specifically] lake snow “watershed” got a similar amount [8-10 inches] yesterday, and after I plowed it off our driveway this AM and PM, another persistent band developed and has dropped another 10-12 inches.
Remember cold is not an absolute deterrent to snow- sort of…
It even snows plenty in Antarctic’s cold season.
Well this sucks. NOW WE HAVE NO WATER!!! The pipes somewhere have frozen either in a city’s water line or in the apartment building somewhere (they just fixed a line going to the building when it froze last time it got below freezing maybe a month or so ago)… At 6:30am the pressure was low so I figured it was going to go out. I quick did yesterday’s dishes, filled up containers, watered plants, filled up cat water dishes, took a shower (hot water was luke warm), washed some fruit for later… and grumbled.
Well it turns out a major big time water main froze and broke at the water plant. The entire city is under a boil water order - presuming one has water that is. At least they have incentive to fix it since it is a main line out of the water plant for the entire city. Hope to heaven the 3 hospitals in the city have water.
And the news just said probably no water for 3-4 days minimum. Sigh. Guess I need to ice skate to the grocery store in the morning to find there is no toilet paper bottled water.
And they are doing rolling power outages. I haven’t been hit with that so far. Fingers crossed it stays that way. Entire apt is electric. It is currently 21 degrees and while that isn’t as bad as this morning (or what many of you have) that will be cold enough for sure. On the other hand if they cut off the power at least I can move the freezer contents to the car and it will be fine. LOL
@PhysAssist Not sure where I’d put a container big enough for 100 gallons as this apt has about 525sf. No bathtub but that sure would be handy in some circumstances. I wonder how long it would take to fill it and if they made the opening such that you can maneuver it to fill it from the bathtub spigot were one to have a bathtub. Interesting.
@Kidsandliz
Are you in Texas? I saw a video on the weather channel about the rolling power outages there? Also for the water Bob you could put the water in a cooler or one of those big jugs and only fill up what you could hold. Some drinking water is better than none.
@Star2236 No. In MS. What is in TX hits here the next day. Trouble is no water at all so nothing to fill it with except what I buy. I did fill things up prior, but didn’t go (due to ice everywhere and the city just looking at it saying they’d salt after all the storm was over. Sigh.) to the storage unit to get my 5 gal camping water container or cooler.
@Kidsandliz Hi,
Sorry 'bout that- it’s hard to use without a tub.
They are made so that when you spread it out in the tub, the opening is tight under the spigot.
They also come with a hand-pump operated siphon apparatus for decanting water out of it for use.
Maybe some water bricks would be more manageable for your situation…
@PhysAssist Good to know though for future tub use for when I can finally get the hell out of this dump. That tub thing is a great idea.
I do have two 5 gal containers in storage that I should have gotten in advance but I wasn’t expecting water to go out city wide for so long. Well and then with all the ice not safe to go get. I do plan to go get them tomorrow if the ice is gone from the rain that just stopped (low is 28 or something so it will be ice after nearly an inch of rain/sleet). Then fill up at storage since they have water there. What I really need is a short hose thing that would have a thing that fits around a sink spigot so that they will be easy to fill instead of having to do it peanut butter jar by peanut butter jar. Then I could at least flush the toilet.
@tinamarie1974 He LOVES it. If i didn’t dig the paths for him, he would wade out in it up to (or over) his shoulders (he does anyway, often to pee). He does his version of snow angels, basically rolling around on his back, so when he comes in he’s covered all over and sometimes has giant snowballs stuck all in his hair.
@tinamarie1974@ybmuG Reminds me of a cat I had as a kid. She loved!!! the snow. We’d gently throw snowballs over her head, she’d jump up to bat them, fall over on her back in the snow, tunnel under a bit, surface, look at us and meow to tell us she wanted us to do it again. Rinse and repeat.
@Kidsandliz@Kyeh@tinamarie1974@ybmuG Except for the color, he reminds me of our Newfies Maggie and Gizmo- they’d break the ice in our pond in order to swim in it. …or curl up nose to tail and let the snow drift over them while they took a nap.
It only sucked when they then wanted to sleep in bed w/ us.
Sorry girls, you’re too wet and cold…
@Kyeh@tinamarie1974@ybmuG Frostbite, unless you are big time sub zero temps, isn’t instant or even close to it. First your toes (or whatever) gets red, then it hurts, then finally starts to feel numb, then it starts getting white and freezes. In the snow belt we used to slide down the front walk in the front of the house in bare feet trying to turn that hill into ice. We’d slide down once or twice (waiting our turn all of us in bare feet) and then run inside and stand on the radiator cover to warm up our toes. Then back out again, doing that over and over. No frostbite ever (no idea why mom ignored what we were doing - I guess she presumed natural consequences for being so stupid). I’d walk 3/4 mile to school in jeans and no long underwear. My thighs generally were numb by the time I got there and so were my toes (and it hurts when they warm up if they start to feel numb), but never any frostbite. Even when it was zero or a little below. Now at 15 or so or more below frostbite comes on a lot faster.
@Kidsandliz@Kyeh@ybmuG we had windchill around -20 the last few days and my concern was more for the pup and his naked paws. There was one time at night I thought I was going to have to drudge out to the middle if the yard to carry him back. He kept lifting his paws out of the snow and looking at me.
@Kidsandliz@tinamarie1974@ybmuG
Or some teeny crocs? Although they don’t look very snow-proof; and I also know he doesn’t like clothes. They’re just so darn cute.
@chienfou@mike808 The wind turbines that help power Scott Base & McMurdo Station in Antarctica seem to perform alright. At 30 below zero or worse
Reduces imported diesel requirements at the research facilities by over 120,000 gal per year (imagine how much that ‘gas’ must cost!). Ross Island wind farm
@Kidsandliz Sorry, no warranties expressed or implied and all sales are final.
Not that it helps now, but I did buy a lifestraw awhile back after watching those storm and natural disaster shows on TV. Better to have and not need than the opposite I say, which is coincidentally the same line of reasoning for most Meh purchases.
Weather Weirdness. A week ago it was -13 degrees. Today it is 63-degree sleeveless-shirt weather and I have the windows on the south and west sides open to get in some fresh air. I can see patches of still frozen snow and ice, and my still almost solidly frozen pond. (Dark spot is a tree shadow.)
I STILL don’t have water (we get Houston weather a day later). Just finishing day 12 of that!!! We had a street party (on a different street than mine) filing containers from a nice water main break that made it easy. TX called out the national guard to help on day 5. Here they were called at the end of day 10. I doubt the governor would have even called but his mansion has no water either so he had some motivation. All they are doing though is handing out toilet flushing water, bring your own container. The street fountain was faster. We win the who can wait the longest to call for help contest. Right?
if this was your pick for February 2021, we need to send you back to 2020
@Cerridwyn
Spoken like a true Californian?
It’s cold and I’m cold and I feel like pouting about it
In the meantime, today’s high will be 72f and I’m seeding my yard. I’d prefer the normal 50- 60ish. Bugs have started, too.
@OldCatLady
Sometimes I really miss Florida
@OldCatLady
Oh boo hoo to you, it’s 72. Today it feels like 5, you wanna trade?
@Star2236 If I can trade our two senators and the forsworn florange mess, yes.
@OldCatLady I sincerely apologise for your defective weather
Ok, I’m glad I’m 100 miles away right now.
https://www.fox4news.com/news/multiple-injuries-from-icy-wreck-on-i-35w-in-fort-worth-involving-50-plus-vehicles
Caused mostly by ice on roadways
@f00l Weird. Everything was fine, dry-ish even, when I drove to the office on the west side of town (Ridgmar/Carswell) around 11am.
@compunaut
I think the wreck happened or started overnight. When there was light precip and below freezing temps.
Not sure. I wasn’t in DFW at the time.
Most of dfw that doesn’t need accident cleanup seems ok now, according to Google maps.
I30 near Greenville and all of Waco look really bad.
@f00l Maybe Texans shouldn’t drive when it’s below, say 30degF? News said first accidents occurred about 6:15am; most vehicles were traveling at high rates of speed (until suddenly they weren’t) on icy roads. Before sunrise.
@compunaut
Maybe texans shouldn’t drive when there’s been recent precipitation and it’s still on the roads
someone I know who was out on the roads about then did say it was black ice that you couldn’t feel it or see it until suddenly you needed to stop
so maybe the drivers had that small excuse but they were definitely going way too fast for conditions
@f00l Wow. Today’s accident is already included in Wikipedia’s entry for ‘black ice’.
Also called a ‘mass casualty event’
I’m in the negative Wisconsin weather. This year is still much warmer than 2019, I’ll take it.
@mbersiam Northern IL here, it’s practically summer compared to 2019. Well, mid-fall maybe…
@mbersiam @mossygreen N. IL here.
I was outside doing auto maintenance all day yesterday.
I won’t say that it was fun, but it’s DONE.
@G1 My husband needs to replace a broken belt in the snow thrower. We’ve been stuck shoveling again this year because it’s been too cold for him to tinker with it. Mind you, I replaced the belt in the dryer last weekend, but it was also inside so I understand.
@mbersiam No garage/shed to protect from wind?
Thin gloves, “Grabber” hand-warmers (on the back of my hand inside the gloves seems to be best for me), and breaks.
Also, rechargeable hand warmer helps too, but too thick for inside of the gloves.
@G1 @mbersiam I mean a snow blower fits through a door… Can’t imagine there is much preventing him doing it in side besides… You know…
@G1 @unksol there’s no way ours would fit through a standard doorway.
We do have a garage but it is not insulated.
I’m not worried about it. He’ll get to it
@G1 @mbersiam lol must be a heavy duty model.
Been a few years since we got hit with a couple feet of snow… And I’d still try and drive up hill out before I shovel. Never had a blower
The big pileup notwithstanding (Texans absolutely should not be allowed to drive in these conditions, but you know how they are with the freedoming
), I always appreciate when we get a little chill down here. Might even have some snow within the next few days.
@joelmw I’m originally from Chicago (or rather, far suburbs). This hardly even constitutes as cold weather.
@compunaut Missoula. It’s late spring, early summer. I readily admit though, Missoula is arid, so even below zero, the bite probably isn’t as bad as Chicago in the teens. Also, Missoula gets the Chinook, which is kind of amazing.
I could do without the sleet and freezing rain.
Here they are talking about the world ending (I live around 2.5 hours north of the gulf of mexico). Actually it is eventually supposed to be in the 20’s with potentially snow. Raining right now but the pavement isn’t cold enough to freeze yet. What sucks is that the worst of it is supposed to be starting Sunday night and my second covid shot is Monday morning. Schools have already been preemptively cancelled - ha ha kids no snow days with zoom - I am betting my second covid shot bites the dust too.
The idiots around here can’t drive in rain. Don’t even want to see it ice or snow (actually I have seen it twice - nope nope nope don’t want to have to be in it a third time). They still tailgate and speed. Having been in a 25 car pile up years ago in a blizzard I don’t ever want to repeat that experience. Then I didn’t even realize it was on a bridge until later and I managed to stop without hitting anyone or anything. But with no place to hide I was hit by a taxi who was hit by a honda civic who was hit by an 18 wheeler and that shoved us down the highway a number of feet into a pile of cars. I’ll take major sub zero temps over what is coming here (I lived in the midwest snow belt and also worked in NW Ontario with -40 to -60 F common winter temps - both are preferable than ice storms or snow in the deep south - that being said I like snow. In an area where people know how to handle it.).
@Kyeh I’m concerned these are not counting toward the fuck tally though
@Kyeh @unksol Well, then, for fuck’s sake put in some more fucking fucks in your fucking post, if you’re that fucking concerned about it, fucker.
@Kyeh @mike808 I wasnt THAT fucking concerned about it on fucking friday you fucker.
. Just that it was unfortunate the fuck counter probably cant parse fucking good images that should be fucking counted. And at the fucking time it was fucking cute.
Also on fucking Saturday I was not that fucking concerned and did not know that some fuckheads had intentionally designed the majority of texas’ fucked up electric grid to be independent with basically fucking worthless interconnects on a capacity level. And also been fucking stupid enough to build in no spare natural gas pipeline capacity as they shifted off fucking coal. Or any sort of heating capacity for fucking critical fucking fucked infrastructure. Even though you shouldn’t expect it to be this cold regularly its fucking happened before. So you can only assume some fuckheads let people cheap out.
I have a lot of remote coworkers in texas. Texas is going to be a disaster area. Wait till it thaws and the burst pipes start spraying water. I’m definitely not fucking happy about it. I can’t imagine its going to be cheaper to have not regulated baseline emergency heaters which their own power plant would have provided the heat for. and yearly maintenance and correct pipeline capacity. Than letting the plants go offline, prices skyrocket, and people die. Never mind the economic cost.
The whole it’s texas it never happens thing doesn’t really fly when it has. Enough fucks? Fucking shitty fucked situation. And if they had just connected to a real grid…
@Kyeh @mike808 @unksol
fucking exactly.
Some bad stuff apparently came down overnight in DFW
This is from 7 AM Saturday morning
Normally on a 7 AM on Saturday there’s not a lot of traffic and the roads are completely clear
the cold and the bad roads would’ve kept many people home so for the roads to be that obstructed at 7 AM that means that the few people out are finding the roads near impossible
@f00l
The sun is out and thebDFW highways are currently ok.
But Sun-Tues promises s worse scenario: an ice or so of ice sheet and snow on top of that.
If that happens, those kind of motherfucking shitass fuckwad road conditions cannot be safely driven on.
I’m not sure an Olympic level ice skater could do much with that situation.
/giphy zamboni slide
@f00l
That giphy wasn’t my intention, but it fits.
/youtube zamboni accident
Cold here, but at least the wind died down, that makes a huge difference
Negative 35
I woke up to 40F at 5:30am. That’s just not right for northern Utah, 20’s would be normal.
@blaineg My mother lives in southern-ish Utah (Beaver), said it was going to snow this next week. Weather is getting weird all over the place. Here in Northern MN we typically have a ton of snow. Maybe 2" on the ground here, and while we are having a serious cold snap right now, it has been relatively warm all winter.
Poor Houston. Unaccustomed to real winter.
From this morning
Last night broke the record for that day for lowest temp by about 15 degrees or something, and tonight we are going to be single digits, apparently something that hasn’t happened a zillion years which will again break tonight’s record (although not the overall record of lowest temp recorded here regardless of the date). Of course all the sleet is now frozen, no snow plows or salt trucks anywhere in sight - roads look pretty virgin in that respect - as if snowfall just happened - including the highways - and I know the city owns some (although not enough of them). In fact all sorts of stores are closed - grocery stores, Walmart, the mall, etc.
Some dude in shorts earlier today when it was 19 degrees out (now it is colder) was interviewed by someone who was so bundled up that if she fell over she’d have probably bounced. Had to laugh at that. We did crap like that as stupid college students in upstate NY including in several feet of snow. Flip flops too, and converse sneakers with no socks.
@Kidsandliz …and stealing [well, borrowing] cafeteria trays to use as makeshift sleds down any nearby slope- not ski slope, and not hill, just any area with any sloping land at all…
@PhysAssist Yeah we’d do that back when I was in college. And make long trains where the first couple of people in the train would eventually be sliding down the hill would end up sliding on their butts as the trays would be pushed further back. We a steep hill on campus where you’d have to bail while still going pretty fast once the track had been iced or you’d run smack into the cafeteria wall (which a few eventually always did). There would be probably or 60 or 80 people traying there at a time. At least. And trains could be a good 25+ people long.
@Kidsandliz Too right- I forgot about making trains…
Such fun times. Low budget high jinx.
Hey Minnesota we need you to tell stupid Mississippi that the world isn’t going to end; that shutting down the entire city isn’t what you need to do just because it is 8 degrees with maybe an inch of snow/frozen sleet no one has even tried to plow or salt despite having a handful of trucks to do both and despite the fact we are now into day 2 of this (Hint: you should have started with the highways going through town, you’d be done by now and they’d be dry). They apparently plan to wait until it melts on its own. Really???
@Kidsandliz So, you’re saying it’s not gonna melt on its own? They might have salt trucks but no salt.
Why would the taxpayers vote to raise taxes to pay for that? Small government, just welfare kings and queens milking the taxpayers again to go buy liquor on nice plowed roads. Eff that. Why do homeless people need plowed roads, anyway? Get a job clearing driveways for rich people. That will solve the unemployment problem. People are such babies wanting thrme government to do everything for them. Where are all those self-professed pull yourself up by the bootstraps American patriots? They’re all looking for a government handout to clear their streets. Useless. Send them back to their home country if they don’t like snow and cold in winter.
The cognitive dissonance, it burns (fossil fuels, of course!)
'Murica!!!
@Kidsandliz @mike808 I thought the rich people had heated driveways
@mike808 What the heck is the welfare king and queen comment all about and what does that have to do with salting and plowing so people can drive safely to get to work? So you think no city, even in the snow belt, should tax people to pay for plows and salt trucks? Should plow roads?
They do have salt trucks with salt here as they talked about that and said they weren’t going to salt during the bad weather, just after it (they need to take lessons from northern cities about when to most effectively use their salt to prevent ice build up - I grew up in the snow belt so know about when they do it up there). And I saw 3 plows in one news shot alone so I know they have those.
@mike808 @tinamarie1974 The rich people then need to pay for heated streets that run from their driveway to their place of work, their preferred grocery and liquor store. Oh wait they probably have cellars for that and don’t need to work. They live off the labor of the rest of us. LOL
Actually on a more serious note, I had a friend who bought a house with a heated driveway. It helped if the snow wasn’t deep nor the ice wasn’t that bad. It didn’t really do much if it was really, really cold or stuff was too thick or deep. She said it cost a fortune to use it. And she had kids. And snow shovels and bags of salt. She used that method. (grin).
@Kidsandliz Your sarcasm detector is faulty…
There are places (especially in the South) where every governmental idea is about lowering taxes & privatizing services, where Welfare just sucks up all the money, etc.
@compunaut Yeah I figured that out when it was too late to delete. I was reacting based on the number of people on here who trash those on SNAP, etc. and are serious about it.
@compunaut @Kidsandliz
/giphy snark-o-meter over 9000
@Kidsandliz @mike808 Although, I havta say that salt is useless at below 15F [-10C] unless other deicing chems are also used- rare as that is.
https://www.abc57.com/news/road-salt-ineffective-at-certain-temperatures
@mike808
You sound like you drank the Q Anon koolaid there buddy…
My screened back porch this morning, as taken through the kitchen door, because I’m not opening the door. There’s another storm coming through (the Ozarks) tonight with more snow. I just keep looking at the forecast that says a week from now it will be close to 60 degrees.
We just got probably 8 inches last night while it was 15 degrees (without the windchill), I always thought it had to be warmer to snow so much. Anyways bone chilling cold again today, tonight’s low is -3 and I’m already
@Star2236 Hi, We here in the Great Lakes [Erie and Ontario specifically] lake snow “watershed” got a similar amount [8-10 inches] yesterday, and after I plowed it off our driveway this AM and PM, another persistent band developed and has dropped another 10-12 inches.
Remember cold is not an absolute deterrent to snow- sort of…
It even snows plenty in Antarctic’s cold season.
But too cold to snow is really a thing kind of…
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-meaning-of-th/
and
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/snow/science/formation.html#:~:text=While it can be too,lift or cool the air.
@PhysAssist
Thanks, you learn something new everyday.
@Star2236 Ditto- I had to look that up to make sure before I posted it.
Well this sucks. NOW WE HAVE NO WATER!!! The pipes somewhere have frozen either in a city’s water line or in the apartment building somewhere (they just fixed a line going to the building when it froze last time it got below freezing maybe a month or so ago)… At 6:30am the pressure was low so I figured it was going to go out. I quick did yesterday’s dishes, filled up containers, watered plants, filled up cat water dishes, took a shower (hot water was luke warm), washed some fruit for later… and grumbled.
Well it turns out a major big time water main froze and broke at the water plant. The entire city is under a boil water order - presuming one has water that is. At least they have incentive to fix it since it is a main line out of the water plant for the entire city. Hope to heaven the 3 hospitals in the city have water.
And the news just said probably no water for 3-4 days minimum. Sigh. Guess I need to ice skate to the grocery store in the morning to find there is no
toilet paperbottled water.And they are doing rolling power outages. I haven’t been hit with that so far. Fingers crossed it stays that way. Entire apt is electric. It is currently 21 degrees and while that isn’t as bad as this morning (or what many of you have) that will be cold enough for sure. On the other hand if they cut off the power at least I can move the freezer contents to the car and it will be fine. LOL
@Kidsandliz For next time, please think about getting one of these:
https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwiJwJ-FufDuAhWk8sAKHWXmDX8YABAGGgJpbQ&sig=AOD64_1H3h8-Ft_5NHt_nCVcymzwyTaNQA&ctype=5&q=&ved=0ahUKEwjUlpqFufDuAhULVs0KHdlpDwMQ2CkIzQc&adurl=
Beats having to figure out what is big enough and clean enough for keeping water- as long as you have a bath tub to keep it in.
@PhysAssist Not sure where I’d put a container big enough for 100 gallons as this apt has about 525sf. No bathtub but that sure would be handy in some circumstances. I wonder how long it would take to fill it and if they made the opening such that you can maneuver it to fill it from the bathtub spigot were one to have a bathtub. Interesting.
@Kidsandliz
Are you in Texas? I saw a video on the weather channel about the rolling power outages there? Also for the water Bob you could put the water in a cooler or one of those big jugs and only fill up what you could hold. Some drinking water is better than none.
@Star2236 No. In MS. What is in TX hits here the next day. Trouble is no water at all so nothing to fill it with except what I buy. I did fill things up prior, but didn’t go (due to ice everywhere and the city just looking at it saying they’d salt after all the storm was over. Sigh.) to the storage unit to get my 5 gal camping water container or cooler.
@Kidsandliz How miserable!
I hope things improve soon.
@Kidsandliz Hi,
Sorry 'bout that- it’s hard to use without a tub.
They are made so that when you spread it out in the tub, the opening is tight under the spigot.
They also come with a hand-pump operated siphon apparatus for decanting water out of it for use.
Maybe some water bricks would be more manageable for your situation…
https://theprepared.com/homestead/reviews/best-two-week-emergency-water-storage-containers/
@PhysAssist Good to know though for future tub use for when I can finally get the hell out of this dump. That tub thing is a great idea.
I do have two 5 gal containers in storage that I should have gotten in advance but I wasn’t expecting water to go out city wide for so long. Well and then with all the ice not safe to go get. I do plan to go get them tomorrow if the ice is gone from the rain that just stopped (low is 28 or something so it will be ice after nearly an inch of rain/sleet). Then fill up at storage since they have water there. What I really need is a short hose thing that would have a thing that fits around a sink spigot so that they will be easy to fill instead of having to do it peanut butter jar by peanut butter jar. Then I could at least flush the toilet.
We have about 0.8 yekoP of snow
@ybmuG aawww poor guy. Does he at least like the snow?
@tinamarie1974 He LOVES it. If i didn’t dig the paths for him, he would wade out in it up to (or over) his shoulders (he does anyway, often to pee). He does his version of snow angels, basically rolling around on his back, so when he comes in he’s covered all over and sometimes has giant snowballs stuck all in his hair.
@tinamarie1974 @ybmuG Reminds me of a cat I had as a kid. She loved!!! the snow. We’d gently throw snowballs over her head, she’d jump up to bat them, fall over on her back in the snow, tunnel under a bit, surface, look at us and meow to tell us she wanted us to do it again. Rinse and repeat.
@Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974 @ybmuG
Here’s someone else loving the snow:
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @ybmuG Except for the color, he reminds me of our Newfies Maggie and Gizmo- they’d break the ice in our pond in order to swim in it. …or curl up nose to tail and let the snow drift over them while they took a nap.
It only sucked when they then wanted to sleep in bed w/ us.
Sorry girls, you’re too wet and cold…
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @ybmuG aaawwww
Literally what the pup has been doing in our big snow. It only lasts a few seconds though b/c I am terrified of frostbite 🥶
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @ybmuG Frostbite, unless you are big time sub zero temps, isn’t instant or even close to it. First your toes (or whatever) gets red, then it hurts, then finally starts to feel numb, then it starts getting white and freezes. In the snow belt we used to slide down the front walk in the front of the house in bare feet trying to turn that hill into ice. We’d slide down once or twice (waiting our turn all of us in bare feet) and then run inside and stand on the radiator cover to warm up our toes. Then back out again, doing that over and over. No frostbite ever (no idea why mom ignored what we were doing - I guess she presumed natural consequences for being so stupid). I’d walk 3/4 mile to school in jeans and no long underwear. My thighs generally were numb by the time I got there and so were my toes (and it hurts when they warm up if they start to feel numb), but never any frostbite. Even when it was zero or a little below. Now at 15 or so or more below frostbite comes on a lot faster.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @ybmuG As Walter would probably say, “we’re raising a generation of wusses.”
KuoH
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @ybmuG we had windchill around -20 the last few days and my concern was more for the pup and his naked paws. There was one time at night I thought I was going to have to drudge out to the middle if the yard to carry him back. He kept lifting his paws out of the snow and looking at me.
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @ybmuG Your poor baby needs puppy mittens on when he goes out!
@Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974 @ybmuG
Or some teeny crocs? Although they don’t look very snow-proof; and I also know he doesn’t like clothes. They’re just so darn cute.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @ybmuG omg THAT is hilarious!!! Yeah he is a nudist
Not fond of clothes at all!!!
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @ybmuG
Speaking of crocs, maybe they make a tiny set of croc nutz for his tiny crocs.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @mike808 @ybmuG that is just wrong…
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @mike808 @tinamarie1974 @ybmuG But put lights in them, on clearance… WWTMD?
/giphy nutsack crocs
@tinamarie1974 Distract yourself from the cold outside with this ice hockey story
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/02/hockey-goalies-are-too-big-now/618021/
@Kidsandliz article was a nice afternoon distraction! Thanks
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @mike808 @tinamarie1974
Yes…yes, it is
@tinamarie1974
Uh… you, or your pup?
@ruouttaurmind uuuummmmmm
In -15 degree weather, the pup!
@ruouttaurmind @tinamarie1974 I guess in other weather the answer might be different…
@compunaut @ruouttaurmind
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@mike808
Frozen windmills and well heads don’t help the situation. Hard to overcome PPPP when ‘the chickens come home to roost’
@chienfou @mike808 The wind turbines that help power Scott Base & McMurdo Station in Antarctica seem to perform alright. At 30 below zero or worse
Reduces imported diesel requirements at the research facilities by over 120,000 gal per year (imagine how much that ‘gas’ must cost!).
Ross Island wind farm
@chienfou @compunaut
@chienfou @mike808 But it’s a dry cold
@compunaut @mike808
Agreed… Ergo the PPPP comment…
Hey TX you can take your weather back! Quit sending us this shit! (currently raining ice with flood warnings west of us)
@Kidsandliz Finders keepers!
KuoH
@kuoh Nope nope nope because of this rule: I’m rubber, you’re glue. Everything bounces off me and sticks to you.
And I am just finishing day 9 of no water. So you can keep that too.
@Kidsandliz Sorry, no warranties expressed or implied and all sales are final.
Not that it helps now, but I did buy a lifestraw awhile back after watching those storm and natural disaster shows on TV. Better to have and not need than the opposite I say, which is coincidentally the same line of reasoning for most Meh purchases.
KuoH
Weather Weirdness. A week ago it was -13 degrees. Today it is 63-degree sleeveless-shirt weather and I have the windows on the south and west sides open to get in some fresh air. I can see patches of still frozen snow and ice, and my still almost solidly frozen pond. (Dark spot is a tree shadow.)
@rockblossom Yeah, after all that cold weather drama in TX last week, it’s 82F in Ft Worth today
@rockblossom Same here!
But snow predicted for tomorrow.
I STILL don’t have water (we get Houston weather a day later). Just finishing day 12 of that!!! We had a street party (on a different street than mine) filing containers from a nice water main break that made it easy. TX called out the national guard to help on day 5. Here they were called at the end of day 10. I doubt the governor would have even called but his mansion has no water either so he had some motivation. All they are doing though is handing out toilet flushing water, bring your own container. The street fountain was faster. We win the who can wait the longest to call for help contest. Right?
@Kidsandliz Damn!
@Kidsandliz
All the post-Katrina New Orleanians living in Texas remember what waiting for help is like.
/image pepperidge farm remembers
@mike808 I am sure they do. That was a terrible mess.
@Kidsandliz @mike808
yes… a truly Emmy worthy shit-show.