So far so good
No power outages yet here, although very late last night the lights flickered a few times. The truer test will come tonight, with the big freeze after the rain.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
No power outages yet here, although very late last night the lights flickered a few times. The truer test will come tonight, with the big freeze after the rain.
Neo– Good luck! It’s still raining here in New Haven as of 3 p.m.; the temperature dropped from a high of 59F (!!) earlier today to a current temp of 44F. It’s due to drop to a low of 9F tonight, with wind chill readings between 5F and -5F. The mayor sent out a blast phone call last night warning of possible power outages and icy roads, but so far everything is okay, at least in my neighborhood.
Now that winter storms as well as hurricanes get names, the current unpleasantness is called Winter Storm Elliott. It’s shaping up to be a nasty one, judging from the info. posted at Wikipedia (lowest temps so far in Montana, -50F).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_December_2022_North_American_winter_storm
Here’s hoping that all Neo’s readers wherever they live are safe, warm, and healthy.
Temps here in southeast OH dropped from the forties last night to minus 2 this morning, along with a strong wind. There’s snow on the ground, but not even an inch. Temperature is not forecast to warm up for several days. Our heater has been running non-stop but the house won’t get above 65. Maybe we can get Jimmy Carter to re-do his speech about leaving the heat low and putting on a sweater.
Our Baltimore daughter is without power as a result of a tree having been blown down, but fortunately she has a wood burner. She’s probably warmer than we are.
Let me repeat PA Cat’s hope that all Neo’s readers will be safe, warm and healthy.
Keeping my fingers crossed – still have power despite strong winds blowing trees and other items that might take out power.
Co-workers in central NJ and out on Long Island have lost power today; but they have power again. One co-worker woke up to three feet of water in their street; not really a surprise since she lives in a prone-to-flooding area. Her house has a lower floor that is nothing but a carport.
As for myself, the heavy rain has caused some flooding in my basement. Nothing it do as it is drying up now.
I am ready for the power to go out – double checked the oxygen tank as I will need it for a bed-ridden relative if the power goes out since the oxygen concentrator won’t work without electricity.
PA+Cat – naming winter storms is the doing of the Weather Channel. They realized what a bonus it was to their increase in viewership for hurricanes to be named and asked the National Weather Service to name winter storms. The NWS said no, there was no need to name winter storms. The naming of hurricanes was so that those out to sea knew which storm was heading their way. But, the Weather Channel went ahead anyway and now name winter storms themselves.
The wind is howling quite a bit by me; but,I don’t expect the house to blow away. I got all my errands done earlier today; so, now we are all snug and warm inside.
I’m suffering under sunny skies and 62 deg. F.
A very rainy week is coming next week, but I’ll be gone for that. I’m flying tomorrow for the first time since before covid, but I believe my southern route should spare me the possible cancellation grief.
We’ve always had a third-world power grid here, and the winters usually have outages particularly with high wind storms which are common. Stringing powerlines through forests is not a recipe for reliability.
We have had below freezing temps and snow in the Puget Sound area. This morning (4am – 8am) we had freezing rain. Things are all coated with ice. No power outages in our area though, thank goodness. It’s 2pm and the temp has just reached 32. It’s forecast to rise to 38 tonight and then on up to the mid 50s. by Christmas day.
We have a Pineapple Express headed our way. It may rain for the next seven days. Then we’ll be dealing with floods. Mother Nature has quite the sense of humor. 🙂
Air travel is a nightmare. Add personnel shortages to weather like this and everything gets snarled up and backed up. Not my fondest memories, but I remember being stuck in various cities for up to three days by snow and bad weather. Airline pilots miss several Christmases with family over the years. No fun, but part of being a service that’s in demand during the holiday season
This polar invasion is nothing new or unusual. We called them “blue northers” back in the day. I knew a pilot from Plentywood, Montana. (Population 1,669) He didn’t consider it really cold until it got to 40 below. That’s where these polar invasions hit the hardest and last the longest. I guess that’s one reason why it’s sparsely populated.
Minus two degrees F with 25mph winds. Earlier higher gusts blew down one of our trees which then knocked down a nearby tree. Praise the Lord, the power is still on, but downstairs is cold, heat pumps can’t keep up. My better half keeps asking why we are still living in PA, but mother is reaching triple digits of age in a couple of months, I’m going nowhere for awhile. May be a rough couple of days until midweek.
JJ–
Apropos of cold snaps in the upper Midwest, my Norwegian-American supervisor for my part-time library job back in the day used to tell a joke about North Dakota temps:
Q: Why does it go down to -50 in North Dakota winters?
A: It keeps out the riff-raff.
A few minutes ago my power went out. I thought, “Oh-oh, this is it.” But it came on again after two minutes.
May happen again and last longer, may not.
Neo,
I hope you have plenty of candles, and an insulated vacuum pitcher where you can keep some hot water for drinks. I even have a tea light holder I could use to warm a can of soup. Fortunately, It’s relatively warm on this side of the pond.
The person who bought our house in CT is complaining on the town FB page about the power still out, Lebanon, CT. Out since 9am and no estimate from Eversource as to restoration. That’s the one thing I absolutely do not miss….the multihour to multi-day power outages EVERY time a storm rolled through. And the winter ones are very taxing as the temperature in the house keeps going down.
Working as a Directional Driller in North Dakota 11/2011 – 7/2012 it got down to -40. The schools shut down until it “warmed up” a bit as it was too dangerous for school children to be outside waiting for the bus, much less walking to school in the towns.
I dressed for it the best I could (thermals, insulated boots, insulated coveralls, gloves, hard hat liner, no exposed skin) but after 5 min. outside you knew it would kill you.
expat:
Thanks – flashlight and candles. I’m not really a big one for hot drinks anyway, so that part doesn’t matter. I once spent 5 days without power when it was minus 5 F and I also had the flu. That was fun.
Temperature here in northern Alabama dropped 40 degrees overnight after we arrived. Back home, there were 200,000 customers in NC without power at noon, down to only 100,000 now, but the big freeze is starting there. Instapundit reports the TVA is having rolling blackouts in east TN.
Om, for me it was grade school Minot AFB 1964 and yes, we walked to school (only about 1/4 mile).
Chases Eagles:
I don’t have any memories from my first winter on this Earth, Fairbanks Alaska 1954. My father was deployed on a Skysweeper 75mm AA unit, keeping watch for Soviet bombers.
Bitter Temp maps -20 lower than normal engulfing East of Rockies down to Texas-Gulf tip of Mexico — Dr Ryan Maue Temps midnight 23Dec22
Also, closeup of the coldest part of the US, map of Kentucky-Tennessee states, where temps are -40 of normals: https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/1606336481022414856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Here’s 2m video this morning of Lake Ontario shore waters in white out conditions — looks like Florida Hurricane, but for ice on bushes and snow sometimes heading at camera in Buffalo, NY.
Reed Timmer writes “BIG-TIME SEICHE storm surge flooding at Buffalo Naval Park with winds over 60 mph. Dangerous #blizzard conditions”
https://twitter.com/ReedTimmerAccu/status/1606321386976415744
TO THIS LIFE-LONG WEATHER WATCHER, IT’S A VERY IMPRESSIVE EVENT!
MY folks bought matching raccoon fur coast in Winnipeg. And one -40 event of that (70s) decade in Minnesota found me playing outside in felt pack boots, ski goggle’s, down parka, and WWII era bomber crew overalls.
I was toasty, except for any exposed skin which instantly froze to frostbite. Good times!
Seattle area got hammered with freezing rain this morning. I saw at one point that I-90 was closed east of Issaquah to I-405. Bumper cars on Queen Anne Hill.
Thanks to stupid Washington State, I can no longer use a 100-w incandescent bulb for heat in my well house. I have to use a resistance heater. After running fine for 3-4 years, mine ran amok last night, failed to shutoff until the well house was 80 degrees and then it died. At least it didn’t burn the well house down.
Currently 24 degrees with snow flurries in western Massachusetts, with the wind picking up and the temperature dropping rapidly. Cold, but not unusually so for this part of the country. Today’s high was 58 degrees with heavy rain squalls. I was driving around the Pioneer Valley and into southern New Hampshire earlier today–all the streams were overflowing and small lakes had formed in the low areas by the roads. So I expect things will get interesting overnight and into the morning. I had planned to drive into the Boston area tomorrow to see a cousin–will probably have to belay that. No power outages where I am so far, and no alerts from Eversource. By the way, it’s colder back home in Alabama than it is here. That will change in the wee hours, however.
WHY THIS? Why Now?
In the Pacific, the PDO (or Pacific Decadal Oscillation) has oscillated into its colder or negative phase a couple years ago. These phases alternate. This means more and longer La Niña events —and fewer and weaker El Niño events for about 25 years.
Meanwhile, in about two years or so, in the Atlantic, a similar cycle for the AMO (or Atlantic Meriodonal Oscillation) will turn negative or colder.
We haven’t had these two together since the 1900-1920 period, IIRC.
IN addition, we already have the sun in a weak phase of its periodicity, meaning a weaker electromagnetic field to bat away water vapor nucleating Cosmic Ray particles. With more of these high energy bit entering the earth down through the atmosphere, we are very likely to have more clouds which reflect the suns radiative heat back into space.
Thus, solar scientists have bet on cooling.
The logic is strong. But will measurements of clouds coincide with lower temp measurements on earth?
We’ll see.
If we do, then the Catastrophic global warming hope will be dashed and crashed, because their theory could not predict this.
Ergo, watch and wait the next three to five years. It could get quite interesting. Excel for this like the UK and Europe who’ve heavily bet on global warming idiocy.
If it doesn’t, then maybe skeptics have missed something.
Fingers crossed for Neo’s power to stay on. So far the lights are still on here on the CT coast, but the temperature has dropped to 13F on the New Haven Green, 16F at the airport (which is usually slightly warmer than downtown because it’s right on Long Island Sound). Mercifully the wind speed has calmed down to 10–20 mph, which means we’re probably through the worst of the storm. The high tomorrow is predicted to be 20F. The remaining active weather warning is for flooding along the Housatonic River.
The cats know it’s very cold outside for this area: they’ve been hungrier than usual (they have to maintain a normal body temp between 101F and 102.5F) and staying in their favorite warm spots– a heated cat bed and a heap of blankets on top of the human’s bed. They’ll upgrade to piling on top of me under the blankets when I go to bed later tonight.
TJ,
You’ve apparently missed all the proclamations that “climate change” will bring on more frequent severe cold events. The reason they switched from “global warming” to “climate change” over 10 years ago was to be able to blame any weather event on CO2.
The cats know it’s very cold outside for this area: they’ve been hungrier than usual (they have to maintain a normal body temp between 101F and 102.5F) and staying in their favorite warm spots– a heated cat bed and a heap of blankets on top of the human’s bed. They’ll upgrade to piling on top of me under the blankets when I go to bed later tonight.
Ours have been spending time curled up together.
Art Deco–
My cats curl up together too– they just like to have the option of moving their togetherness from the heated cat bed (it’s a large one that easily contains both of them) to the human’s bedding to the human under the bedding. The outside temp went down to 7F earlier this morning; it’s now 12F at 10:40, may go as high as 20F by the afternoon.
I can easily understand why physicsguy moved from CT to Florida.
OM. I think they used to call the Skysweeper the “million dollar gun”.
So, for grins, called up Fairbanks’ temp. Minus 19.
PA+Cat,
It wasn’t just the long winters….it was also the ridiculous power outages with every storm. I was checking a bit earlier, and my former town, Lebanon, is still suffering with the majority of the town out of power now for over 24 hours. And with those temps many are struggling to keep the house at a reasonable temperature with just wood heating. Eversource is saying MAYBE this afternoon for restoration. And I’ve heard they want to double the electric rates!
The longest outage so far here in Florida was 3 hours due to a truck hitting a pole. Our average electric bill has been about $80. That’s with a electric heat pump for both AC and heat, and electric hot water.
When I last posted, it was 65 indoors and 10 outside. Then our power went out and we had to go spend the night with our daughter, who has a generator. I came over this morning and the kitchen tap was frozen, temps indoors in the teens and outdoors at zero.
Power just now (1:40) came back on. Cat was very ready to come in, I could get back on line, and the heater is back on. But we’re headed back to daughter’s for dinner.
Keep warm, dear Neo readers!
physicsguy — yeah, that fear climate porn does not work on me. I’m in dire need of re-education at a Big Brother State approved camp, clearly. Just incorrigible.
I’m no good.