Winter Storm in Northern Americas

[paintybeard]

Having just seen jaw-dropping pictures of the weather pummelling USA and Canada I hope the you are all safe and well over the pond.

[Glitterwolf]

Take care people!

[haldir]

Here, it actually not been that bad. It was bad Thursday night/Friday morning cause of the crapshow of the way were working outside & the circumstances, but as far as temps are concerned it's generally in the high 20s to mid 30s. There is snow on the ground & falls from the sky occasionally. I think it suppose to turn to rain either Sunday or Monday. Mixed between rain & snow is a possibility as well.

 

Now other parts of the states, yah I'm glad I'm not there right now.

[Auberon]

The snow mostly missed us (2" or so) but the cold did not.  It has been -8F (-22.2C) when I got up the last few days, but what I really dislike is the 25-40mph (40-64kph) wind that has been constantly blowing.

 

Of course next week we are forecasted to be unseasonably warm and stay above freezing for several days in a row.

[Chaoswolf]

So far, so good here!

[Inarah]

10 hours ago, paintybeard said:

Having just seen jaw-dropping pictures of the weather pummelling USA and Canada I hope the you are all safe and well over the pond.

 

Thanks for thinking of us.  My location was hit on Wed night/ Thurs morning and we are starting to thaw out here.  Temperatures above 0 and clouds starting thin. Should be above freezing by next Tues.   Anyone with any sense just stayed home. 

 

 

[haldir]

My son is cycling through the NFL games on tv (we got Sunday ticket for free this year) & the only game that makes me feel cold is the Saints & Browns game. ha ha

[Thoramel]

We stocked up on food and liquor a couple days prior to the storm and plummetting temperatures. So we figured we're good to stay inside and wait out the cold. Unfortunately our electric service provider just sent an email out saying there's too much load on the grid and they may have to do "grid protection outages" over the next couple of days to keep everyone from losing power. This isn't really a surprise as the grid operator has been dropping the ball and neglecting maintenance for a couple of years now. Keeping that in mind I set up our van as a camper a few days ago. If we lose power I've got a bed and blankets already set up in there, a full tank of gas and a litterbox for the cats. It won't be comfortable, but if they shut off our power randomly then at least we'll have somewhere warm. 

Edited December 24, 2022 by Thoramel

[strawhat]

The worst is over for us.

 

Youngest lost heat in her apartment and has been camped out with us for the last few days--both of the Strawbonnets are here as well.  It'll be nice to hear the 'Bonnets Christmas morning.

[Sylverthorne]

We're in a sheltered pocket, so even when it was doing freezing rain and I was reluctant to walk out the front door to get the mail. Forget going OUT, much less trying to drive on the skating rink that was the road.

... I hear Seattle was worse (made. of. HILLS).

We're now up to 50F and raining; which I'd happily trade to anyone south of the border for their single-digit temperatures.

 

Piece of advice I got the last time the temperature dropped to single digits and we lost power was to pull the curtains - which we did - and literally pitch a tent around the bed (which was tricky, because I didn't have a suitable tent at the time, but pitching a tent in the living room and lining the floor with whatever you've got to keep you /off/ the floor would probably work  just fine), to make a pocket of Warm. The smaller the pocket, the easier it is to warm with bodyheat, and the more bodies you have, the faster it gets warm. 

That's the theory, anyway.

 

Suspect some of you could kitbash something out of PVC, blankets and spare blackout curtains, with enough warning.. ^^;

[Pegazus]

It was bitterly cold here for two days. Power wasn’t an issue and had it gone out we have the wood stove that would have made it much less miserable.

 

Today was in the 50s, and the AC came on inside the car. So the weather has passed. 

[haldir]

https://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=35315041

 

 

Browsin espn this morning & came across this.

[Cranky Dog]

Friday is when we got hit. But my area was north enough of the storm to avoid the worst of it. So we had far less snow than expected, and not even that cold, though there were high winds and road closures. No power outage at my place, but other's weren't as lucky.

 

I was surprised at how clear the roads were on Saturday. Still windy, a few snow plows, slower than usual, but overall as expected. Normally, it's under four hours to reach my mother's place, and this time it was slightly over 5 hours. Only vehicles I saw in the ditch were a snowplow (surprising), and a semi that managed to jackknife itself and separate the cabin from the main body, but otherwise intact. It didn't even physically block the road, but people slowed down so much to watch that traffic went to a crawl for a good half hour.

 

At my mother's place, they got tons of snow and very narrow streets. I was glad to arrive as darkness fell and the storm picked up again.

 

Edited December 25, 2022 by Cranky Dog

[Rahz]

We were supposed to be driving on Friday, but changed up plans to leave Thursday morning for our 15ish hour drive to North Easter Quebec, from Ottawa.  Drive was fine but the storm found us up here.  110+ KM/Hr winds (no clue what that is in miles, sorry...) which left us without power for over 18 hours.  As much as I love my mother in law, I wish she had a BBQ or camping burner or gas/wood fireplace...  everything is electric up here.  And we're far enough North that the sun sets at 3:30 in the afternoon.   It had gone out on Friday morning around 1am so by the time we got up, the house was getting chilly.  Candles, sweaters slippers helped and I used a fondue set to heat water for tea.  I'd say about 20% of the city and some smaller outlying ones are still out as I write this.  We got power back on Christmas Eve, just as we had prepped everything to exchange gifts (traditional to do so on Christmas Eve in Quebec), the power came back on.  

We have since gotten another dump of snow (4-6 inches).  

 

All I have to say is that folks that have a generator in times like this are jerks for leaving their xmas decorations plugged in and lite while most folks can't even stay warm.  

[Cranky Dog]

8 hours ago, Rahz said:

We were supposed to be driving on Friday, but changed up plans to leave Thursday morning for our 15ish hour drive to North Easter Quebec, from Ottawa.  Drive was fine but the storm found us up here.  110+ KM/Hr winds (no clue what that is in miles, sorry...) which left us without power for over 18 hours.  As much as I love my mother in law, I wish she had a BBQ or camping burner or gas/wood fireplace...  everything is electric up here.  And we're far enough North that the sun sets at 3:30 in the afternoon...

Glad you made it safely, but you really got me curious as to where your MIL lives.

 

Having lived in many different places in Quebec, I'm familiar with travel times there. And there are only a handful of places, mostly on the north shore, I can imagine taking 15 hours from Ottawa.