A day or 2 ago I checked the weather because I have a 9:30AM doctor appointment in the city. They were calling for snow of an inch or less. Now we're forecast to get up to 2" tonight (100%) and another 7" tomorrow morning (90%.) Then it's gonna rain. Then it's gonna hit the low teens tomorrow night. I guess my foot will have to wait. And it's time to invest in auto body shops. One good snowstorm (followed by some ice) generates more business than 100 commercials.
We have now lost power, so I started the generator and we are waiting out the outage. Trees are down on lines everywhere, and the wind is still blowing. The wind chill must be around -20 F.
So how long do outages usually last in your area, Don? And I assume you have a large-ish diesel generator to keep the fridge/freezer/well going?
Nope, I just have a gas generator for our place as the outages don't generally last long. The longest since we have lived here was 18 hours, but that was at -37 F. I think I have discussed that here a while ago, but there were new lines strung during the summer that year but they didn't leave enough slack in the line, so when the temperature dropped to really low temperatures and the lines contracted, many of the pole just snapped off. Then there was the problem of having to drill new holes for the poles into soil that was frozen 10 feet down or deeper. It is not the type of outage that occurs in many areas.
All the waterlines from private wells have "bleed-backs" on them so no water stays in the lines. It has gotten down to -52 F. here, but our water has never frozen. It is almost impossible to bury private water lines below the frost line. Anchorage water lines are down 11 feet, but I don't know how deep they are in Fairbanks, which is much colder. I have only heard of Anchorage lines freezing once since we moved in here in 1992.
Thanks. That probably explains why the well we had in our side yard never froze, even when the inside pipes had frozen. I never did understand that, but when we had a freeze-up in the house, we would have to pump water from the well, which always worked. We'd have to prime it sometimes, but that was about it.
50 degree drop in a matter of 6 hours or less. 28 and had lots of wind gust last night but thankfully no pipes burst because I run taps strong enough to prevent that. Last year we had some 14 degree freezing which really test your pipes and I had 4 leaking pipes. I only finished repairing one faucet outside just before summer ended, a tiny leak due to an expansion crack that was just a drip all summer, the first major temp change and it started leaking a bit worse so I shuffled on down to the hardware store and spent 6 dollars. I don't even want to think about crawling around in the mud and cold water to fix a pipe of any size or type. I watched a show on The Weather Channel about three lake ice crushing vehicles and that made me cold just watching it. I never knew a machine like that existed. Without the crushing the end of season thaw causes massive flooding of their town so it is needed every year to crush that river ice so it flows and not back up into their town. brrrr
Same here, ran air conditioners all last week but not needed yesterday morning and it was still warm but all that changed around noon when it finally came blasting down and over from Texas. It was 19 in Dallas Fort Worth while it was still warm here in the am.
From -5 yesterday to 44 today so no whining here even though a big storm is coming up the river with high winds and rain. They predicted an ice storm, but the temp is rising not falling as expected so possibly some flooding along the smaller rivers and possible wind damage. Several freeway accidents last night due to the drier snow on the ground blowing and causing "whiteouts." I spoke too soon. Just got an alert that the temp has dropped to 38 and dropping rapidly so prepare for ice storms.
Have you had this snow before? I mean, since living there? At least you don't have to shovel a whole lot, like our 7 inches we got last Friday into Saturday morning. Yvonne keeps saying how she "doesn't miss snow at all (Idaho)" and then you post a picture like this.