• Cyburbia is a friendly big tent, where we share our experiences and thoughts about urban planning practice, the built environment, planning adjacent topics, and anything else that comes to mind. No ads, no spam, and it's free. It's easy to join!

NEVERENDING ♾️ The NEVERENDING Weather Thread

Sounds like the cold is going to last all week. No snow or anything, just slightly cold.
 
The Bills don't have a weather advantage as such though; they're playing the Steelers, another open-air, cold-weather city. I've listened to a few podcasts and although the Steelers didn't do as well as the Bills this season, they are on a similar upward trajectory the last few weeks and may be a tough game for the home team.
 
Bubba said:
Forecast for next Tuesday has an overnight low of 18 - I didn't sign up for this. :down:
Click to expand...

Sounds like you've gotta change your settings from Celsius to Fahrenheit.

giphy.gif
 
jsk1983 said:
Downright balmy, not even supposed to get above zero here Monday. Guess we picked a good week to go to Hawaii.
Click to expand...
The problem here in Texas is the infrastructure (including homes) are not built for temps this low. Burst pipes are a real concern. A friend lives in a restored 100-year-old house and the pipes above his kitchen burst and drenched the whole kitchen during the big Texas Freeze of 2021. At my son's house the ice line for his fridge burst; luckily he heard it go and knew how to shut it off.
 
Well, yesterday's storm disrupted a lot of schedules around here. We still have high water levels on a few rivers, some down trees, but otherwise in good shape. Other side of the region had some significant flooding.
 
Supposed to be -15 this weekend. Fortunately, I stocked up on firewood.
 
They are calling for Blizzard conditions in parts of Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula. We are going to get thunder storms down here.

All of this is the same storm.
 
We ended up with 15 inches and managed to get about 90 percent shoveled out using a new technique. Instead of bundling up (the wind chill was about -15) I went out with just hat gloves and a fleece about 6 times. Movement was not restricted and I got too cold and came in before wearing out from the shoveling movements. Finishing up the driveway and dealing with the snowplow furrows tomorrow may be tougher because the wind chill will be more like -45.
 
Like a fluffy down comforter, some high clouds have descended upon my fair City raising the temperature to -9F, WC-30.
 
We got about 10" of snow up in my neck of the woods from Early Friday until about noon Saturday and Saturday night we had had blowing and drifting along with a HUGE temp drop and 45 mph wind gusts. I went over to my dad's to clear his driveway and on the way home, we ran across a young (22ish) woman who had hit a drift and gone off into the snow. Being the always prepared Boy Scout, I pulled out the tow straps and hitch shackle and pulled her out of the ditch and got her back on her way in the other direction. The road we were on drifts REALLY bad and the drifts were worse in the direction she was headed. She decided going home was the better option (my apologies to her BF).

I got out in the tractor to snowblow my driveway and the 5 others in the neighborhood that I do. This was the first time I've gotten to get out since I put on the cab that's been sitting in the barn for 3 years. What a difference not having snow blowing back in my face and cutting the wind. Plus, no snow getting into my beer. I added a back blade this year as well and it was nice for peeling up the snow where it had been driven on that the snowblower usually floats over.

1705363298625.png
 
So... We aren't sure who did this graphic, but this is the best representation of the difference between sleet and freezing rain that we've seen.

Sleet comes down in little balls of ice, not dissimilar to graupel. Graupel should not be confused with sleet, which is sturdier and more frozen; graupel occurs when a snow pellet falls and is encapsulated by ice where sleet is literally pellets of solid ice and tends not to "explode" when it hits your windshield.

While sleet IS essentially an ice droplet, it's not freezing rain. To put it simply, freezing rain develops when the raindrops do not have time to freeze before hitting the ground. The water then freezes once it hits the ground, making a layer of ice. Sleet is when frozen precipitation melts as it falls through warm air and then refreezes before it hits the ground.

This is why you see the accumulation of ice pellets when there's sleet and you see that layer of flat ice coating surfaces when there's freezing rain. Essentially the difference between sprinkles and glazing!

We don't know about you, but we'll eat both
1705375197881.png
 
JNA said:
^^^
Next he is adding chains.
Click to expand...
Nah, don't need them, plus they tear up the blacktop. There's 100# of fluid in each tire, plus another 75# on each in the wheel weights. About 250# in cast iron weights on the heavy hitch plus the 60# or so the blade weighs. Not to mention my 230#. With that much weight and bar tires, chains are unnecessary.
 
It is 55'F in my office this morning. Glad I wore a turtleneck over my tee shirt and under my dress shirt.:cold:
 
We got down to 10 the night before last. Not as as bad as 2021 when we got down to -2. It seems running faucets on a drip is either keeping the pipes from freezing or it's not actually that cold in my crawl space. I'm not sure which, but I'll let the drip continue until we get back above freezing tomorrow... and possibly until we're significantly above freezing at night (this weekend).

When we had the historic freeze in '21, my outdoor faucets were freezing over. I was going out every couple hours to thaw them with a hair dryer. Someone suggested just letting them run a bit and they didn't freeze after that.
 
The thermometer in my Jeep said -10º when I went to go workout yesterday morning. I think it reached around a high of 6º later in the day. Around 6:00 p.m. Monday evening schools started closing for the day Tuesday because of temps forecasted to be around 0º with wind chills in the -teens. Our district ended up closing about 10 minutes before my oldest went to bed. I didn't get a chance to tell her before she came running out to let me know because somebody in her group text alerted all the other kids.

Fast forward to this morning and the temp was actually closer to 10º without much wind. :r: I will admit that the wind has picked up a little bit and that some of the roads are still trashed from the snow and ice we got Friday, but they totally could have had school today.
 
It was -9 this morning. My car hasn't been started in about a week and a half. It turned over slow, but started on the 2nd try. I replaced the battery a month or 2 ago, which probably helped. I should really get a frost heater, these little VW diesels start much better with one of those and I don't see myself rearranging the garage to get my car in anytime soon.
 
We were a balmy 65 yesterday. At 8 am this morning it was 28, now back to 34. Luckily the rain ended right when we dropped below freezing. We don't due snow or ice very well. Our vehicles and roads aren't setup for them.
 
Aaaaaaannnnnddddddd school is closed for tomorrow because of the temps. :r:

estromberg said:
It was -9 this morning. My car hasn't been started in about a week and a half. It turned over slow, but started on the 2nd try. I replaced the battery a month or 2 ago, which probably helped. I should really get a frost heater, these little VW diesels start much better with one of those and I don't see myself rearranging the garage to get my car in anytime soon.
Click to expand...

Early Sunday afternoon when it was really cold I started my Jeep up and it hesitated a little bit. I pulled it out of my (unheated) garage and parked right between our house and the neighbor's house while I was putting Christmas decorations back into the attic (the access is right above where I park). When I went to put my Jeep away the battery was completely drained. It's not even 2 years old so I don't really think that should be happening but it was super cold and the way the houses are, that section of the driveway always acts as a little wind tunnel. I put the charger on it while I went inside to clean up some more stuff and came back a bit later and it started right back up. I drove it around the neighborhood for a few to make sure it was running fine and I went to use the wipers and found that in the few minutes it was parked in that little wind tunnel that the fluid had frozen solid.

Thankfully, I haven't had any hesitation since then but now I'm definitely worried. I've been keeping an eye on the battery charge reading on the little info center on the dash and it seems to be holding steady so hopefully I won't have a repeat.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
Aaaaaaannnnnddddddd school is closed for tomorrow because of the temps. :r:
Click to expand...
There seems to be a seismic shift in how administrators approach school closings. Seems like back in the day our local school superintendent kept schools open at all costs. Now it seems like there's an expectation that school will be closed X # days in a school year. Since we had a really warm December the fear must have been that we won't reach X unless we find some pretext like it's really cold! C'mon, school was never once closed due to it being cold. Not once. Never.
 
Maister said:
There seems to be a seismic shift in how administrators approach school closings. Seems like back in the day our local school superintendent kept schools open at all costs. Now it seems like there's an expectation that school will be closed X # days in a school year. Since we had a really warm December the fear must have been that we won't reach X unless we find some pretext like it's really cold! C'mon, school was never once closed due to it being cold. Not once. Never.
Click to expand...
Their legal staff has them worried about liability. Ambulance chasers have expanded into school bus chasers.
 
Gedunker said:
It is 55'F in my office this morning. Glad I wore a turtleneck over my tee shirt and under my dress shirt.:cold:
Click to expand...
And 52'F in here this morning (outside 6'F, -5'F WC). Glad I keep an L.L.Bean sweater in the office for these sorts of days.
 
It's a balmy 2F this morning. Don't know what the windchill is at the moment, but I can't feel my fingers after scraping the windows on the city car.
 
fringe said:
Their legal staff has them worried about liability. Ambulance chasers have expanded into school bus chasers.
Click to expand...
We closed a lot during my school days. TN gets just enough snow and ice to make it a pain, but not enough to keep salt and equipment on hand to deal with it. Plus, my school was rural and in the middle of a bend and branch of a decent little river. Anything more than a few inches and 3 of the 4 roads to the school would be under water. Being rural, everyone either road the bus or had a parent drop them off. In '93 we had 2.5 weeks added on to the end of the year even with built in snow days.

My current city is a smallish town and with budget cuts they don't run buses within two miles of the school. So all of those kids either walk, bike, or are dropped off. Parents don't want their kids walking in cold. All it takes if for one bus to slide off the road. Its too easy now to call it a remote day and not have to make it up.

Hoover, AL (suburban Birmingham) is basically a bunch of hills and valleys. Ten years ago, they got hit by a mid day snow event that was bigger than expected. 2-3 inches fell and they had a few thousand kids stuck at the school overnight.

 
The temps have soared up to 22F. It feels pretty normal outside at long last. I see it's supposed to get up to 40 next Wednesday!
 
Back
Top