Boy did it get COLD

So far the news other than a dead Mandella is trickling out that around 25, 000 low lying  homes are affected by salt water flooding all around the UK coastlines .

 Biggest tide surge since the  massive "  East Anglian floods of 1950's £ (Google it ).

There are benefits of living on a big hill.

When I left for work this morning it was -11 degrees F. Plantoid put on your hip waders and stay dry.

SFG, December 6, 2013   
Double Oak, TX - just a few miles north of Dallas
Current Temp:  25°f    
Weather forecast says through Sunday, high of 29°f with a low of 15°f

BOY - For us this is COLD.  All schools, and most businesses are closed. 

 

 

Thanks for the pics, Gloria. I never would have guessed that DFW could look like that!

Wow, Gloria!    That's severe for you.

Nice covers, btw.  Do they stay on in hi winds?

CC

Thanks Boffer,  it doesn't get this cold very often.

Hi CapeCoddess, Yes the covers are VERY secure.  They've held up to some really high winds without any damage.

I fasten them with pinch-clamps from the hardware store and add a few bricks along the edge when it's going to be windy.  They are now 3-years old and still working fine.  Only problem was a broken zipper I didn't have time to repair before the weather hit.  That's why the black gorilla tape on one of the covers.

The other night it got to 12 degrees here, much colder than usual.

We're expecting 3-6 inches of snow.  That's a lot for this elevation - we're at 1500 ft.  We used to be at 3500 ft and that was a fairly common winter snow.  We'll see how my greenhouse holds up.  I may be getting up a couple times in the middle of the night to knock snow off of it to avoid a collapse.  Same with our patio gazebo cover.  We don't take the cover off because we don't "need to!"  Except this year…!

Oh, boy.  Best of luck with the snow weight!

johnp wrote:When I left for work this morning it was -11 degrees F. Plantoid put on your hip waders and stay dry.

If  I get the need for them up here the world is in dire trouble  

I'm about 350 feet above sea level on a hill side ,  the nearest stream to me is about 200 feet below me 1/2  a mile away down the hill .

On the way home from dinner tonight I thought I heard on the radio that the wind chill would be -45 F tonight. I turn to my hubby and the look on his face confirmed what I heard. He say this is just too cold it's like the arctic here. We both grew up in GA and last winter here wasn't this cold.

mschaef wrote:On the way home from dinner tonight I thought I heard on the radio that the wind chill would be -45 F tonight. I turn to my hubby and the look on his face confirmed what I heard. He say this is just too cold it's like the arctic here. We both grew up in GA and last winter here wasn't this cold.

We are getting the same arctic air mass as you right now.  We have a wind chill warning until noon tomorrow.  It is early in the season for this for us.  Not looking forward to what January will bring!

GG

Storm warning today, lots of snow. Down to 15 degrees tonight, but then a steady warming trend toward the high 30's next week. I did love seeing our first real snow yesterday, the kind that stays for hours. Took the dogs out in it and they loved it, chasing each other all about in it and tasting the snow everywhere they went.

YUK .. when you guy's across the pond sneeze we catch the cold over here.

I'm not looking forward to the weather this next six to ten days .. I'm just shivering at the thought of it all.

 Think I'll make a hibernation den deep in the duvet.  

plantoid wrote: Think I'll make a hibernation den deep in the duvet.  

I spent the day making flannel pillow cases!  It was -11F when I woke up, which was a nice surprise since the predicted low was -20F, with a wind chill warning thrown in.  I will now begin the down comforter I promised to make for a friend's 4 yr old.  The really cold days of winter are setting in a bit early this year, so I am lining up several warm projects!

GG

GG- sounds like you have the right idea for winter, warm projects.

Marc-  15*   Brrrr

Plantoid-  Ditto   Brrrr

Off topic, also.  The glass hummingbird feeder is freezing at night.  Have to bring it in now at night.  My favorite hummer chewed me out today!

  They do get demanding about their meals, don't they?!

GG

Down to 10 degrees today, and the water pipes froze. No water for us! I hope our pipes are plastic, which takes cold pretty well, and not metal, which tends to burst when freezing and thawing (and cost a fortune to repair). A friend said he'd come by and see if there was anything he could do to help. He called 15 minutes later and said he had slid off the road into a ditch, as did his next door neighbor, and it was too dangerous for him to come. I said I didn't blame him. The roads around my place are probably worse, because we're up hill along a curvy road that hasn't been salted or plowed.

Good thing there's plenty of snow from the last few days, I guess. It is really beautiful and the dogs love it. But it also gives me fresh snow to scrape up and bring inside for water. Not enough to do laundry, wash dishes, and other chores, unfortunately. And ... I'm ripe for a shower and was looking forward to one.

I learned something new today. It takes a LOT of snow to make a small amount of water. I scooped up a heck of a lot, brought it inside, and wound up with very little water, about a quarter as much as was in the containers, by volume.

Apparently I need to learn something here...

How come your pipes froze, Marc? I thought that if the area of house where the pipes are (the basement in my case) was warm enough they wouldn't do that...?

Can you use the water in your water tank? There's a faucet at the bottom of mine and I always figured I could use that if my pipes freeze.

Shoot, I just dumped all the ice & water out of my 5 gal buckets out by the SFG. Maybe I should fill them up again.

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:Apparently I need to learn something here...

How come your pipes froze, Marc? I thought that if the area of house where the pipes are (the basement in my case) was warm enough they wouldn't do that...?

The pipes enter the house in our closed garage. I think we may have a space heater I can put in the closet the pipes are tucked into. It's much warmer than outside, but I guess not warm enough.

Here in Oregon, lots of handymen and professionals seem to be less than at the top of their game. Construction problems and half-arsed patchwork solutions abound. I guess competition is less than fierce, so they can get away with a low standard of work compared to what you get in bigger and more easily accessible cities. At any rate, problems that would be unexpected elsewhere tend to crop up more frequently here, as the work and design standards are lower.

Can you use the water in your water tank? There's a faucet at the bottom of mine and I always figured I could use that if my pipes freeze.

Don't have one.

Shoot, I just dumped all the ice & water out of my 5 gal buckets out by the SFG. Maybe I should fill them up again.

I think I'll see if I can find a 5-gallon bucket I haven't grossed up with dirt etc and fill it with snow, then bring it inside. Failing that, I'll fill up some tupperware etc and bring that inside. Actually, I should do both.

Try using a hair dryer set on high to thaw water pipes. Leaving the faucet dripping can keep the pipes open.

mschaf I was wondering how you were getting along. I find that kids can play outside a few minutes until it is about -15. As soon as they whine that they are cold bring them in. This is actually closer to what I consider normal winter weather but we have not seen it for several years now and it is a month early.

The local TV station says our area was the coldest place in the world last night. I am hoping this will kill off some of the bark beetles killing the forests. And on a personal level I hope it freezes back some mint that got in the garden. The mulched garlic should be fine. I hope. The chickens are doing fine in their coop heated with a 100 wat light bulb. Their water is a metal waterer set on a cement block that has another 100 watt light bulb in it. We are collecting eggs several times a day to get them before they freeze. The frozen eggs are still good though.

I am sure glad of my warm house these last few days.

Being pedantic I suppose....

This was the coldest it has been at Havre, and many other locations across the region since the four day cold snap of January 30 - February 2, 2011. During that period, Havre's coldest high temperature was -21 and the coldest minimum was -42. Cut Bank and Helena also saw their coldest temperatures since February 2011. At Bozeman and Dillon, these were the coldest temperatures since January 2008. Lewistown recorded their coldest temperatures since December 2009. At Great Falls, these were the coldest temperatures measured since February 1996. wrote:

https://nwschat.weather.gov/p.php?pid=201312090032-KTFX-NOUS45-PNSTFX

I just got home from my two-day trip to Portland. My indoor/outdoor thermometer said it reached -19 last night/early this morning. It says -1 right now.

I know I won't get any sympathy here, but I wanted to share something that I have never seen in this area.  I took the photos at 1 pm.  These 3/4 inch slabs formed 2 nights ago in the dips in the covers over the south MM beds by the back fence.  They still haven't thawed as of 11 pm tonight.  this is the coldest, the earliest, the longest, I can remember in this area.  The orange growers are bringing out all the guns (heat methods).  At some point though, the profit disappears.  After so many nights, poof.  My oranges are ripe (second photo) whereas last year they weren't until January.  I need to pick them just to make sure I have some for my orange cookies for Christmas.