The Weather Thread

[Rommie]

The more pics I've seen and stories I've heard from the Atlanta area the more insane it sounds. Namely because I can't figure out why they, say, sent kids to school that day and then didn't send them home early until it was too late for the buses to run?

Actually got down below freezing for the first time last night here. You can tell because my furnace can't handle it and gets super noisy at night (old single pane windows and drafts and such here), so perhaps it's best the weather's been so mild.

[Thumper]

At least it will suppress the mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas.

That's good news. Last year was the worst flea season ever. I still haven't gotten rid of them.

[pumpkinpi]

Ugh. Snowstorm during the morning commute. 3-6" coming fast. I'm supposed to travel with my dome to an event, over an hour away. Canceling. I'm going to feel guilty all day!


The irony? I'm not seeing talk of school closings. We've closed 5 days for cold but we stay open for snow! Take that Atlanta. This was even a surprise. Yesterday morning the prediction was 1" of nuisance snow. Last night the warning came out that it would be 2-4". This morning the 3-6" predication took hold, and now it's moving up to 5-8".

[FZR1KG]

As usual and for a long time in the future, we are bound by weather.
Saturday is looking to be warm (51F yeah...) so we're headed to the boat because we get two maybe three days of warm before it drops again down to the 30's and snow.
So this weekend I have the task of completing the steering, sorting out the mast brackets and seeing if I can get that fridge to work in warmer weather but putting a heat source to warm the condenser. Don't ask, fridges won't work below a certain temperature so that's one of the tests I'll be doing.
Plus we've got painting to do, more correctly, varnishing the wood and then fitting the new hot water system.
All that in two warm days.

[SciFiFisher]

The more pics I've seen and stories I've heard from the Atlanta area the more insane it sounds. Namely because I can't figure out why they, say, sent kids to school that day and then didn't send them home early until it was too late for the buses to run?

Actually got down below freezing for the first time last night here. You can tell because my furnace can't handle it and gets super noisy at night (old single pane windows and drafts and such here), so perhaps it's best the weather's been so mild.

Because the meteorologists that they listened to told them it wouldn't really hit Atlanta. It was going to hit closer to the coast. They even had pre-positioned the ice and snow removal equipment closer to the coastal areas. So, by the time they realized how bad it was going to be it was already too late.

[FZR1KG]

Went to the marina over the weekend.
The boat was in ice, literally.
The whole area was frozen. I could walk on the water (like Jesus) because there was about 3 inches of ice over the whole area.
This is salt water too so the boat was sitting really high as the salt concentration went up. Lifted the boat about 2 inches higher.
Very very weird. Saw about half a dozen fish frozen in the ice too.
Glad I'm home now.

[Rommie]

Well unlike freshwater seawater is most dense right before it freezes, so that's not surprising (and you're in a cove right?). Mind not sure of the layout but might be worth buying one of those propellers to circulate the water around the boat- the ice is definitely thick enough to crush your hull should it move.

[FZR1KG]

They had a water circulator right at the next dock. It was enough to stop big build ups and the ice melted now as we had a warm spell.

[Thumper]

Woo dog! Storm slammed into us Tuesday night and suddenly, WE WERE BEHIND. Then my truck broke down. Too late in the shift to get a spare, so I got to head home early into the teeth of the storm. It was the most harrowing, treacherous drive I have ever made, and I like harrowing, treacherous drives. Mrs. T's office was closed, The Kid's school called off for Wednesday. I had already alerted the boss I would probably not come in Wednesday. I exercised that right and headed out to shovel and plow my own walks and drives. Then I opened up my neighbor's drive, then I tried to help my other neighbor clear his drive so he could get his car up to the house. I got most of the pad in front of the garage clear, he managed to get his brother in law's tractor also stuck in the drive next to his car. But his daughter was having a blast helping shovel. Neighbor was visibly pissed. I quietly said, "I know, but don't ruin your daughter's winter wonderland. She'll look back on this memory as one of the most fun exciting days of her child hood." He got it. Tonight maybe I'll trudge over and help him dig out some more. The snow came down dry but then freezing rain for 6 hours made it the heaviest, crustiest snow. I'm a little sore today.

[Rommie]

Wait, I don't understand why the neighbor was pissed at his daughter helping out shovel? By the time she's a teenager what those parents will be lucky to get her to do it without coughing up a few bucks!

And you sound like a great neighbor indeed to help everyone else out like that. That and it sounds like at the rate of all the snow days The Kid will be lucky to be out of school by the end of June with all the make-up days.

[Thumper]

No, he wasn't really mad at her actually. He was annoyed at himself and the whole car and tractor are now stuck in the driveway deal. So he was acting a little annoyed and got a little short with her as she was flitting around having a ball. So I just reminded him that while he was having an inconvenience and was hating winter, she was having a cool adventure.

The Kid's school has converted all their professional development days to full, regular school days. But if they miss many more they'll probably have to go longer into June. They have been able to keep up with some assignments by email and intranet.

[brite]

Downside: It's cold and rainy and it's making my fibromyalgia act up
Upside: English class was cancelled!

[Thumper]

Back down to -2 again. If you didn't get the crust off your walks or car by now....it ain't comin' off. After shoveling out Mom last night, I drove through my old neighborhood. It was a beautiful disaster area.

[Swift]

We have some impressive piles of snow in our area. Its not that we've had any really big storms; I think the most we had from one storm has been 6 inches, and most have only been a couple of inches. But it isn't melting or even sublimating. We had one day above freezing about 2 weeks ago and I think that's been about it for the whole year so far, so the stuff just keeps piling up. There is the pile by our driveway, from both our driveway (where our "plow guy" piles it) and from the street (where the city has been piling it) that is a good six feet high, 10 feet wide, and three feet wide at the base. And we're not supposed to get above freezing for at least a week. This stuff is going to be around for a while.

[Thumper]

Heh heh. He said "sublimate." Heh heh.

[pumpkinpi]

For those of you who have gotten a taste of the subzero (F) weather but are thinking that it's not been enough, then Minnesota is the place for you! As of today (-11F on my way in) we've had 41 days below zero. That's almost twice the average for the winter, but not even close to a record!

Sarcasm aside, I'll take the extreme cold over the extreme weather most of the rest of the country has experienced this year. A 6" snowfall is typically the largest we get during the year. We've had two so far, a few 3-4 inchers, and quite a few 1-2". Nuisances, but not much more than that. We haven't closed school due to snow yet. Even when 6" came quickly during the morning commute!

A foot of snow is rare here. There have been one or two of them in my 8 winters here. More than that, practically unheard of Ice storms--I've seen one.

[geonuc]

I'll definitely take the near-zero temperatures Atlanta had earlier for what is being predicted for this week: ice storm. Along with the nifty iced-over roads we had two weeks ago, we get massive power outages!

I spent a good deal of this past Sunday researching portable generators. Didn't buy one but I might wish I had. Even a nice, quiet*, small Honda EU2000i would be enough to run the furnace, the fridge and a few lights.

* Quiet is the operative word. The ones at Home Depot and Lowes will break your eardrums when running.

[Thumper]

Mine is louder than hell. But I'd recommend any Honda model. The trick is getting it wired into to your panel (semi legally).

[FZR1KG]

Honda makes good generators, so does Yamaha if you can find one.
I prefer diesels myself as they consume so much less fuel and they can generally be depended on to start after a long non use period.
Petrol ones almost always have issues with the carby drying out or some crazy shit.

Expecting about 10 inches of snow starting tomorrow and Thursday.
But next week it is looking really good, 53 Wed, 55 Thurs, 61 Fri.
If the forecast stays like that we'll be heading to the boat for a long stint and getting it almost completed.

[pumpkinpi]

Yay! Potential east cost snowstorm bought me some extra time in the office and got me away from an event I didn't want to do.

I had a conference call with folks in DC scheduled for Thursday but in anticipation of being closed, they rescheduled it to Wednesday. I was planning on being offsite all day, but now I don't have to go until after my call, 1:30 pm instead of 9:30 a.m.

So yay, I get to spend the morning doing boring office grant and production stuff instead of teaching middle schoolers about astronomy.

And no, I'm not being sarcastic. I do enjoy the latter, but there so much of the former that I have to do, and it's nice to have people to cover the fun part. So I can do the boring part. So I can raise money so we can keep doing the fun part.

[cid]

High today forecast @ 15.
Temp 11 ayem -- 0, as in zip, zilch, nada.
Low tonite -2.

High Weds forecast 26.
Thurs/Fri/Sat highs around 30 +/-...

Currently 11.

I am so fscking sick of this trend...supposed to warm up drastically next week.
I can hardly wait...

[geonuc]

Mine is louder than hell. But I'd recommend any Honda model. The trick is getting it wired into to your panel (semi legally).

Not a problem for me. I've pretty much rewired this whole house.

[FZR1KG]

I am so fscking sick of this trend...supposed to warm up drastically next week.
I can hardly wait...

I'm with you on this. Working outdoors in this weather is total shit.

[geonuc]

Went outside just now. Freezing rain and it's starting to coat everything. Georgia Power's outage map is becoming quite active, too.

[code monkey]

thumper, thanks for bringing back a memory. the winter after we'd moved into our house we had a heavy snow storm. michael was away on a business trip and elliot came up to me and said, 'mom! let's build a snow monster!' i really didn't want to move, much less go out into the cold but i told myself to get going. that i didn't want him to remember me as an inert lump. so i slapped a smile on my face and said, 'great idea! let's go.' i don't remember whether it had 3 heads and 7 tails or 7 heads and 3 tails but it was quite something.