Weather Thread

[Malsua]

It was hovering at zero on Friday when I was clearing snow. I was wearing two medium warmth jackets and it felt like a wind breaker. Negative numbers suck even harder. heh.

[American Patriot]

Negative numbers suck even harder. heh.

lol!

[MinutemanCO]

-14 at 5:00 this morning up my way. Made my ears chatter as I started my complaining diesel. Not an uncommon temperature for Northern Colorado in January. The worst I've seen was -26 sans windchill. My heart goes out to those of you back east. Sounds like rediculously cold temps with substantial snow accumluation.

[American Patriot]

Coldest I saw here, minus windchill, was about -31 or so. Winds however were about 30 mph (gusts up to 45). So the windchill was close to -70. That was when I got snowed in up at 10,000 feet.

It was bloody cold. Fortunately I was in a small trailer and sheltered from the wind most of the time. Folks think about survival situations and never really understand how cold it can get in the mountains why people can freeze to death rapidly.

[MinutemanCO]

That's downright miserable. Good thing you had the trailer.

[American Patriot]

and propane, blankets and a shovel. The snow was 4' deep and 5' in other places. Drifts on the dirt road into the property were 6-7 feet. They didn't plow it for a couple of weeks. I ended up hiking out with snowshoes I made from tree limbs, rope, string and other parts. lol. And that was on Saturday. Tuesday morning was the day I woke up to the blizzard.

I had no radio, no ham rig, no tv, no phone up there. (No cell phones for us in those days). No electricity (other than battery power and a solar panel which was buried under several feet of snow).

What I DID have though was about a chord and half of wood, a fire pit, tarps, rope, string, rifle, back pack and food to last me until Friday. I hiked out on Saturday morning when I realized NO one was coming to get me and couldn't get IN anyway.

My poor wife was frantic, calling the Sheriff, my work (Buena Vista, the prison out there, who said "Naw, he didn't show up for work... we dunno where he is. Sorry".

The Sheriff said "Ummm... we don't have anything that can get back in there." - Of course, that was Saturday morning because she didn't expect me home until Friday night. When I didn't show, she got scared.

Started making calls. No one could or would help her.

This is another reason I DO NOT TRUST government to "be there when they are needed".

[MinutemanCO]

Sounds like an episode of I Shouldn't Be Alive. Glad you made it out.

[Malsua]

Sounds like an episode of I Shouldn't Be Alive. Glad you made it out.

Well, if it isn't, it could be made into one.

"Unbeknown to AP, the valve on his propane tank was leaking and soon he'd be without heat. The wood that was sold to him was green and wouldn't burn. His survival food was tainted and inedible and there was 14 feet of snow outside. He was also recovering from recent knee and hip replacements and was looking at a 30 mile crawl to the nearest highway."

[American Patriot]

Well... no, it wasn't THAT bad.

I was sleeping when the snow hit. I woke up to very frigid temps and couldn't open the door to the trailer (Airstream). When I looked outside I realized not only was I not going anywhere "today", I wasn't going anywhere for a few days.

I did what a rational human being would do and yelled "YES!" because I didn't have to go to work. Then I realized it would be awhile before I could get out and I'd better check my supplies. lol

I had 30 gallons of water, four frozen meals (The wife used to make me tin plates of food each night during the week and freeze them, fried chicken, whatever they were eating etc) and I'd carry that and extra supplies up Monday morning. Spent Mon night through Friday up there, drive back to the Springs on Friday evening and start all over at 0-Dark-30 on Monday next week with the new food etc.

So I had FOUR good, frozen meals, some raw potatoes and some spam, onions and bread. A little flour and some corn meal. That was it. Two weeks of food if I was careful. Had my rifle, but honestly about December, there aren't any deer or elk floating around, rabbits and other varmits are underground. Bears are long gone. Nothing was moving but the wind through the pine trees and aspen. I was right at the tree line, and it was a 2-3 mile hike out.

I made the decision to sit it out, take my time digging out to start the car (which wouldn't anyway), dug out my "latrine" down the way, found and unburied the solar panel (no sun for the whole time and snow was falling at about an inch per 2 hours for three days, but blowing like hell so most didn't stay by me).

On Wednesday night I started a fire in the fire pit to stay warm and read. The wind had quit mostly, and I wanted to conserve the propane I had (it wasn't a full tank).

I didn't panic. I didn't worry about anything but staying warm and alive until I could get out. I was pretty sure the family wouldnt worry until Friday night (they did Friday night and they panicked). I had a rifle, a back pack and enough food to last me.

It wasn't like I got dropped on a mountain top with nothing

[Ryan Ruck]

SITREP



Yesterday when temps were still in the upper 30s, I got the bright idea to take advantage of the warm before the cold. I turned up all of my heaters to max and fired up the kero heater. Got the interior temp up to 82 in my house. My thinking was to take advantage of the thermal mass of the house so it might stay warmer inside longer.

Woke up this morning for work after a night of steadily declining temps and still showed 78 inside!

Temps have continued to decline though out the day and we now sit at -7. As of right now, I'm showing internal temps of 73 on my centrally located thermostat (probably cooler in some areas around the house) and holding for the last couple hours. That's decently above the 68 I prefer and well above the 60 I've got the furnace set for.

It looks like this cold won't be a huge deal to weather. Another kero heater definitely would have been preferred as that would have let me dial back the electric heaters some. Of course, the previously mentioned wood stoves would have been even better.




As an aside, an eval on my cold weather clothing...

Around this area I normally only need to wear my base layer Level 1 ECWCS polypro under my work pants, work shirt, and work coat to stay warm while I'm outside working but today had a chance to give the Level 2 thermals a try. They passed with flying colors! Did a great job of keeping out the cold that was around 0 to -3 during the day. Only complaint was that when the wind really kicked up, it definitely cut through. If I wasn't at work having to wear my work uniform, and was spending an extended amount of time out in this, I would have preferred to have the additional Level 5 soft shell trousers/jacket or the Level 6 hard shell trousers/jacket and probably just the Level 7 parka. The Level 7 trousers probably would have been too hot.

My Cintas work issued 2 layer parka did a sufficient job for being the lower quality gear it is.

Footwear was simple mil surp wool socks and my LaCrosse 600 gram Thinsulate boots. The boots are warm but they aren't that comfortable even with aftermarket insoles. The wool socks were great!

Gloves were some relatively newly purchased Ninja Ice gloves. The last 3 winters I've used Harbor Freight Cold Weather Work Gloves which have worked great but I decided to pick up the Ninja Ice gloves on a recommendation that they offer a much higher level of dexterity. After wearing them the last 3 weeks, I'd say they do indeed offer a much higher level of fine dexterity than the HF gloves and they seem to stay equally warm (maybe slightly less so).

Also wore a surplus neck gaiter/neck roll like this



that I got from my brother. Very warm but sucks wearing it with glasses. The warm, humid exhaled air seems to have a tendency to come up around my nose and quickly fogs up my glasses. Ended up having to ditch the glasses while working out in the cold. Not a huge deal as I'm nearsighted but, would have preferred to be able to keep them on to keep the wind out of my eyes and maintain 20/20 vision.

Anyone know if Fog-X (or another equivalent) is safe for transition lenses with anti-reflective coating?

[Malsua]

I have the same problem with fogging over.

My beard keeps my face reasonably warm, so I tend to just cover my ears and the top of my head while zipping my coat up and flipping up the collar.

[American Patriot]

It was negative numbers in the morning. Was -14 (without windchill) at the AFA yesterday when the wife went to work.

It's in the 30s this morning. Yay.

[American Patriot]

'Polar vortex' blamed for at least 21 deaths

Published January 08, 2014FoxNews.com

• 
  Jan. 7, 2014: A Fosterburg, Ill., firefighter, right, looks over a vehicle that slid off an icy McCoy Road about half a mile east of Fosterburg Road, landing in a snow filled ditch in Fosterburg. The driver escaped injury after apparently loosing control on a curve. (AP/The Telegraph)
  
  
• 
  The frozen mist from Niagara Falls coats the landscape around Prospect Point at Niagara Falls State Park. The Polar Vortex brought high winds and frigid temperatures to the area Tuesday. (AP/Niagara Gazette)
  

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The so-called "polar vortex" of dense, frigid air that spread across the country shattering temperature records is being blamed for at least 21 deaths.


Authorities reported at least 21 cold-related deaths across the country since Sunday, including seven in Illinois and six in Indiana. At least five people died after collapsing while shoveling snow, while several victims were identified as homeless people who either refused shelter or didn't make it to a warm haven soon enough to save themselves from the bitter temperatures.


In Missouri on Monday, a 1-year-old boy was killed when the car he was riding in struck a snow plow, and a 20-year-old woman was killed in a separate crash after her car slid on ice and into the path of a tractor-trailer.


In a phenomenon that forecasters said is actually not all that unusual, all 50 states saw freezing temperatures at some point Tuesday. That included Hawaii, where it was 18 degrees atop Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano.


New York City's Central Park broke a 118-year-record Tuesday morning when the temperature there dropped to 4 degrees. Its previous record of 6 degrees had stood since 1896, according to MyFoxNY.com .


Charlotte, N.C., reached 6 degrees, breaking the 12-degree record that had stood since 1884.


Farther south, Birmingham, Ala., dipped to a low of 7, four degrees colder than the old mark, set in 1970. And temperatures also hit lows in parts of West Virginia not felt for 25 years, while the extreme cold in Virginia Tuesday beat record lows that had stood since the late 1950s.


The big chill started in the Midwest over the weekend, caused by a kink in the "polar vortex," the strong winds that circulate around the North Pole. The icy air covered about half the country by Tuesday, but it was moving north, returning more normal and warmer weather to most of the country. This weekend, it was expected to be in the 50s in New York and even higher in places farther south along the Eastern Seaboard.


On Tuesday, many schools and day care centers across the eastern half of the U.S. were closed and officials opened shelters for the homeless and anyone else who needed a warm place.


"I didn't think the South got this cold," said Marty Williams, a homeless man, originally from Chicago, who took shelter at a church in Atlanta. "That was the main reason for me to come down from up North, from the cold, to get away from all that stuff."


In the Midwest and East Wednesday morning, where brutal polar air has lingered over the past few days, temperatures climbed but were still expected to be below freezing. An estimated 190 million people in the U.S. were subjected to the polar vortex's icy blast.


Chicago Public Schools officials said the nation's third-largest school district will resume classes Wednesday after closing for two days because of the cold and idling 400,000 students.


In Indianapolis, Timolyn Johnson-Fitzgerald returned to her home after spending the night in a shelter with her three children because they lost power to their apartment. The water lines were working, but much of the food she bought in preparation for the storm was ruined from a combination of thawing and then freezing during the outage.


"All my eggs were cracked, the cheese and milk was frozen. And the ice cream had melted and then refroze. It's crazy, but we're just glad to be back home," she said.


The bitter cold had slowed baggage handling and aircraft refueling at airports, forcing airlines to cancel thousands of flights.


As of Wednesday morning, more than 900 flights were canceled across the U.S. and more than 2,500 were delayed, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.com.
On Tuesday, more than 3,286 flights were canceled and more than 9,660 were delayed, FlightAware.com statistics show.


Some passengers – like those stuck at Boston’s Logan Airport – remained grounded for days until service resumed.


Across the South, the Tennessee Valley Authority said power demand reached the second-highest winter peak in the history of the Depression-era utility. Temperatures averaged 4 degrees across the utility's seven-state region.


In South Carolina, a large utility used 15-minute rolling blackouts to handle demand, but there were no reports of widespread outages in the South.


Natural gas demand in the U.S. set a record Tuesday, eclipsing the mark set a day earlier, according to Jack Weixel, director of energy analysis at Bentek Energy.

[American Patriot]

Polar vortex turns parts of US ‘colder than Antarctica'

New York City : NY : USA | Jan 08, 2014 at 12:27 AM PST
By aymaan30


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Views: 30

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Commuter walks to the subway bundled up due to low temperatures caused by a Polar Vortex in New York



A bone-chilling icy blast enveloped the eastern part of the United States Tuesday with severe cold temperatures recorded from Southern states up to New England.
The source of the unusually cold weather is the “polar vortex,” a low-pressure mass of swirling Arctic-cold air that typically remains in Canada this time of the year.
However Tuesday the chilling vortex made its presence felt into the Great Lakes region and New England, according to reports.

The icy blast, caused by a kink in the “polar vortex,” affected an estimated 190 million people in the US.

The dense, frigid air broke temperature records in southern and eastern parts of US; records that in some areas had stood for more than a century. Reportedly, the Midwest and the East were colder on Tuesday than much of Antarctica.

And all 50 states saw freezing temperatures at some point on Tuesday including Hawaii, where it was -8C (18F) on top of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano.
According to Detroit News, “The cold turned deadly for some: Authorities reported at least 21 cold-related deaths across the country since Sunday, including seven in Illinois, and six in Indiana."
Schools and day care centres remained closed across the eastern half of the US; officials opened shelters for the homeless and asked residents to conserve electricity in anticipation of heavy demand.
The bitter cold dragged on in the Midwest as well, with the thermometer reaching minus -24 Celsius overnight in the Chicago area and -25.5 Celsius in suburban St. Louis.
Blowing and drifting snow in Illinois stopped functioning of Chicago-bound trains which stranded more than 500 passengers overnight.

“In Chicago, it was too cold even for the polar bear at the Lincoln Park Zoo. While polar bears can handle below-zero cold in the wild, Anana was kept inside Monday because she doesn’t have the thick layer of fat that bears typically develop from feeding on seals and whale carcasses,” Detroit News reported.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “The uncommonly frigid air spread south and east. Northern and central parts of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and northern Arkansas all had single-digit temperatures Tuesday morning."

The bitter-cold weather slowed down baggage handling and aircraft refuelling, forcing delays and cancellations of thousands of flights across the United States.
Reportedly, airlines cancelled more than 2,000 flights in the US, bringing the four-day total to more than 11,000.

According to weather forecasts, the worst should be over in the next day or two. Warmer weather at least, near or above freezing point is predicted for much of United States.

[American Patriot]

It was downright warm here this morning.

Looked to be in the mid 40s when I left for work at 0530. However, the roads down the hill were still frozen solid, and I slid around the corner at the bottom (had it in 2wd not 4wd and was only doing about 1-2 mph lol)

[Ryan Ruck]

We're supposed to hit 55 here Saturday.

[Ryan Ruck]

There's also some models apparently showing a significant storm around this time frame. We'll see...

[Malsua]

Wind Chills are bullshit. I want real temps.

[Ryan Ruck]

[Malsua]

And I want them in real men's units, F, not that pussy C that all the euro-weenies use.