Brutal weather

Ghery said:
Careful! Some of us are getting awfully close to that status. And others are already there. :D



That's spelled JEEP. Of course once you get hooked on the beasts you'll learn that JEEP means Just Empty Every Pocket. Boy does my Wrangler drink gas. :D
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I've never had a Jeep pull me out of being stuck in the snow, but I have pulled Jeeps out with my Chevys. :D
 
us AAirways said:
If you have 4wd, you will want it to snow, so you can have some fun.:D
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Yeah, but there's no point to the FWD if you don't have the clearance. 4WD doesn't work when your frame is hung up.
 
EdFred said:
Yeah, but there's no point to the FWD if you don't have the clearance. 4WD doesn't work when your frame is hung up.
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And that would be 4WD, not AWD. An open center differential is fine until one wheel slips. It's less likely to slip, but once it does, you're SOL.

I used to have a cheap all-manual Exploder that I put on 31 inch floatation tires. That thing was better in the snow than it had any right to be for a $1500 vehicle. Traction was good enough that it could drive on icy roads my wife couldn't cross without falling on her butt (obviously, slowly, as steering and braking aren't any different with 4WD). Only gripe was that the wheelbase was a bit longer than I would like (I cut my teeth on Bronco IIs).
 
My employer is shuttered for the polar vortex. Probably a good idea, I suspect some of my students might have frozen off bits they might miss later trying to get to class.

Me, I'm taking my dog for an excursion tomorrow. Like Ed said, you can always put on another layer. Surprising hearing such wisdom from Ed, but even the blind squirrel gets a nut.
 
MAKG1 said:
And that would be 4WD, not AWD. An open center differential is fine until one wheel slips. It's less likely to slip, but once it does, you're SOL.

I used to have a cheap all-manual Exploder that I put on 31 inch floatation tires. That thing was better in the snow than it had any right to be for a $1500 vehicle. Traction was good enough that it could drive on icy roads my wife couldn't cross without falling on her butt (obviously, slowly, as steering and braking aren't any different with 4WD). Only gripe was that the wheelbase was a bit longer than I would like (I cut my teeth on Bronco IIs).
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So I guess my dad wasn't just digging his AWD van out of the snow when his frame got hung up last week. It happens with any vehicle once none of the wheels have traction.
 
We had a respectable amount of snow last week, followed by a few warm hours and persistent heavy rains last night and this morning, with the predictable result of the river rising a bit higher than we like it. Now it's 21 F and predicted to go down to -1 F tonight, which could create some problems if we get ice jamming things up downstream.

Last time I checked, it was about a food or so below flood stage. Almost all the snow has melted, so as long as things keep moving, it should be fine. The ice is the main thing we're keeping an eye on.

-Rich
 
Ghery said:
Careful! Some of us are getting awfully close to that status. And others are already there. :D



That's spelled SCOUT. Of course once you get hooked on the beasts you'll learn that SCOUT means Just Empty Every Pocket. Boy does my ScoutII drink gas. :D
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FTFY ;)
 
Well right now here in the deep south, (apparently not deep enough) it's 14* and falling fast. With wind at 12 gusting to 21. and will be blowing the same tomorrow.
The tank heater for the horses is having a hard time keeping up, but there's an up-side to this. The Mud is frozen :D
 
Just got a robocall from the county schools. When it started with, "Hello, this is the county schools . . ." I started fuming, thinking they were going to cancel school tomorrow for single digit wind chills. Thankfully, all they did was remind parents (paraphrasing) "don't be stupid, dress your kids for the weather and shelter them at a the bus stop."

+1 for not going completely bonkers on the 'Vortex' hype. I truly expected the opposite.
 
Our buffoon of a governor shut down I-90 from Buffalo west at 3:00 p.m. today in anticipation of the snow. He did the same thing last week to I-87 from Albany south. Both these Interstates are part of the New York State Thruway.

I don't think I remember any road in New York closed in anticipation of snow before, least of all the Thruway. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Thruway has always been the road that even inveterate shunpikers like myself flocked to when the snows came down hard. Most of the alternatives aren't roads you want to be on in bad weather if you have a choice in the matter.

So now that buffoon in Albany Governor Cuomo is forcing people who have no choice but to travel to use the more dangerous secondary roads, which makes no sense at all. It also creates traffic havoc that affects the whole region, especially for people passing through who are unfamiliar with the alternate routes.

The other annoying thing is that they're only talking somewhere between 12 and 30 inches of snow over two days, which is respectable, but not that unusual for that neck of the woods. There's a reason they call that part of the state that stretches along I-90 from Syracuse west "the Snow Belt." The lake effect snow can be impressive, to say the least. That being said, the expected snowfall, even at the high end of the estimates, is certainly within the Thruway Authority's ability to keep clear. Even I have to grudgingly admit that they do a very good job at that.

When I first moved to Syracuse in the early 80's, I remember wondering why the heck all the street signs were so high in the air. You had to crane your neck up to read them. I found out my first winter. Snowfall measured in feet barely elicited shrugs from the locals. It was just part of life.

-Rich
 
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catmandu said:
Just got a robocall from the county schools. When it started with, "Hello, this is the county schools . . ." I started fuming, thinking they were going to cancel school tomorrow for single digit wind chills. Thankfully, all they did was remind parents (paraphrasing) "don't be stupid, dress your kids for the weather and shelter them at a the bus stop."

+1 for not going completely bonkers on the 'Vortex' hype. I truly expected the opposite.
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Thank heavens we have school system bureaucrats to remind us to dress our children in warm clothes in cold weather. :rolleyes2:

-Rich
 
Minus 22C as of a minute ago at VLL. -24 at ARB, -26 at JXN. I could convert that to Fahrenheit but why bother? For SE Michigan, that's brutally cold. I've seen it this cold before, but it's always been a snap freeze, radiational cooling under a calm, clear sky. This is a true arctic outbreak with wild winds whistling across the frozen waste.

My employer announced another snow day tomorrow -- actually a wind chill day. Yes you can put on another layer, but it's dangerous no matter how you're dressed (short of a space suit) when it's -25 and the wind is gusting to 25 kts. I was thinking earlier I might bundle up and go for a hike, but this wind is just a tad too much.

edit: IRS and JYM are both at -27C. TOL is at -26, as are quite a few other sites in the area. The core of the cold air is over northern IN and OH, just as the weather guessers expected.
 
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As far as 4wd goes, the best thing to have in snow is one of the Jeep Quadra-Trac systems.

The transfer case has two selections. Full Time 4wd is RWD with a progressive hydraulic "viscous coupler" type thing connecting the front driveshaft. Its not a viscous coupler at all but more a limited slip clutch pack that is hydraulically activated. Similar but works much better, is super sensitive and locks up tight.

The front and rear axle differentials have the same thing. Basically a much stronger limited slip.

The thing about locked differentials and snow... that sudden locking action can break your wheels loose in a second. The Jeep system was a great hybrid between lockers and the more conventional limited slip system.
 
Along the lake shore, from buffalo to say Erie, penna, it's brutal in a snow storm. White outs are very common due to the winds. I'm sure the gov. Conversed with those in this part of the state before making this decision. To go rescue someone dumb enough to be out in a snowstorm, spun out, off the road is very dangerous. Having been born and raised there I give him a thumbs up. Smart thinking. ( locals know it's coming and hole up till it's over) 3-4 feet, drifting to 6ft in places not uncommon.
 
RJM62 said:
Thank heavens we have school system bureaucrats to remind us to dress our children in warm clothes in cold weather. :rolleyes2:

-Rich
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Yeah, I guess I have become acclimated, since I view this as an improvement over their closings 'in anticipation' of the last few years. Thankfully, in sixteen months, the nest will empty, and I will not have any more need for their bureaucratic oversight.
 
Our business was also closed today, but we're set to reopen tomorrow morning. I don't know what the coldest across the midwest was, but the evening news said we (VPZ) were the coldest in the Chicagoland area. Right now at -14 and wind chill of -41.
 
Brutal winds too?

I am watching 2 large jet aircraft over Maine/New Brunswick now, one outbound from JFK another inbound into JFK. The outbound one is doing about 660 kts GS, the inbound (747) 332 kts (half the speed). Wow!
 
We have our farm in SE MO on the market and, when we sell, we'll be going farther north not south.

There are many reasons why I'll never voluntarily live in the southern tier of states, having the environment of the inside of a sweaty work boot for 6 months out of the year being just one.*

It's -3 here this morning and I'll take this over 90 any day.

To each his own. You guys who love the south enjoy. I hope more people move there in the future. That'll leave more for me up here!

*talking from 1st hand experience here. I spent three years building all across GA, AL, MS, & N FL. I hated May thru Sept for the heat and the rest of the year for other reasons.
 
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It was -2 north of Atlanta this morning. Coldest I've seen it since sometime in the early 80s when it got down to -6.
 
BTW...

I think it's worth noting that, unless you're in the extreme northern tier, the brutal winter cold that keeps one inside only lasts for a day or two.

Yesterday it struggled to rise above 0°F here. Today it'll be in the upper twenties, tomorrow upper thirties, fifties by the weekend. All great weather for being outside except for yesterday.

Contrast that to the summer where, even here, it can be above 90°F for a month or more at a time.

I like being outside, I like working outside. Last summer I spent a full month inside. When it's over 90 with 60 to 70% RH I don't go outside. It sucks far worse than today does and it lasts for months instead of mere days.

As Ed said...
 
timwinters said:
I like being outside, I like working outside. Last summer I spent a full month inside. When it's over 90 with 60 to 70% RH I don't go outside. It sucks far worse than today does and it lasts for months instead of mere days.
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Yeah! Hooah!
 
Ok, this is now out of hand!!!!

It's 48 now, not gonna reach 60, I don't go outside in these temps!

Crazy
 
I remember 20 years ago two friends and I went to Florida. We left weather not quite this cold and got to Cocoa Beach. It was 60, and we just left 6. The water temp was still about as warm as we were used to in Lake Michigan, so we were out in the surf having a good old time. We saw people on the beach bundled up in winter coats, hats, and gloves - at 60°!!! We looked at them like they were fools, and they did the same to us.

Still, 60 necessitates winter wear? I still wear shorts outside into the 40s. Even played a flag football game about 10 years ago in shorts and mesh jersey while it was snowing.
 
Zhunter said:
Ok, this is now out of hand!!!!

It's 48 now, not gonna reach 60, I don't go outside in these temps!

Crazy
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48.....:hairraise::eek:......:rofl:

That won't even put frost on your pumpkin....:nonod:...

It had not been 48 here for three months,,, nor will it warm up to that for another 4 months......;)
 
N801BH said:
48.....:hairraise::eek:......:rofl:

That won't even put frost on your pumpkin....:nonod:...

It had not been 48 here for three months,,, nor will it warm up to that for another 4 months......;)
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Oh...oh...oh...that reminds me!!!

Another good reason to live where seasons actually exist:

When the weather's hot and sticky,
that's no time to dip your dickey.

But, when the frost is on the pumpkin,
now that's the time for dickey dunkin'

:goofy:

Boy, that one has been laying dormant in the back of my brain for at least 30 years...

...maybe I should have just left it there?!?!?!
 
Jimmy cooper said:
That's because you don't live in Westfield n.y. You try it there and you'd be s.o.l.
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Since only 4,896 people live there (per 2010 census) the chance of any of us living there is extremely low.
 
I had a brake freeze and I smoked a new pad/rotor this morning on my Acura. Drove a few miles before figuring it out. Guess its time for a good brake system flush.

ajy3ety5.jpg



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A couple of weeks ago it was so cold (but not anywhere near as cold as this) that I didn't want to use the self-serve pumps at VLL and so I flew to PTK to let someone else pump gas for me. The ramp over at PAC was covered with drifting snow and I had no choice but to park in the middle of it. When I was done, I started the engine, listened to the ATIS, and called up Ground, got my taxi clearance, and inched the throttle forward. The engine revved, but I didn't budge. A little more power, still no motion. Frak! I thought (well, without the mincing), did Doug chock my nosewheel? So I told Ground I'd be shutting down and why, they said fine, it looks like you have something by your nosewheel. So I shut down, walked out and looked... but there was nothing but loose snow, and not that much of it. Started up again, got a second taxi clearance, this time applied the power slowly but didn't stop until, somewhere around 22", I suddenly started to move.

The same thing happened when I stopped to do my runup. The only thing I could figure is that the pressure of my nosewheel was just enough to melt the snow, which then quickly refroze to ice in the cold wind.

It would have been nice if they could keep the ramp clear in front of the FBO, but there was enough blowing and drifting that it would probably have been a losing battle to try. The snow was drifting pretty good on the exit taxiways too. I'd hate to think of what PTK is like today.
 
Ha, won't see this often

DA in Palm beach is -644
 
Were it not for the ice on the scaffolding I'd have had to work today, and try to keep the nailguns from freezing up.
 
Man I'm feeling for you guys out there in the thick of it. Some of those temps sounds BRUTAL. The temperature in my car's thermometer this morning was 40F. Now I'm just hoping we get some rain! Been in a pretty serious drought. If we don't get some water in the ground out here there's gonna be some pretty expensive produce showing up on the shelves across the country.
 
Nothing to feel for. I don't even put on my winter coat until it's -15°F. My winter gloves only get put on when I snow blow the driveway, or I go skiing. So far this winter I've just worn my normal clothes with a thin leather jacket and some thin Kevlar work gloves.
 
Everything here was closed yesterday.

It warmed up to -6 under the sunshine (wind still howling with a windchill of -30) so I ventured out to clear a bit more snow that had drifted up.

30 minutes my eyelashes started freezing together. Ah, it's great to be back up north! :)
 
EdFred said:
Nothing to feel for. I don't even put on my winter coat until it's -15°F. My winter gloves only get put on when I snow blow the driveway, or I go skiing. So far this winter I've just worn my normal clothes with a thin leather jacket and some thin Kevlar work gloves.
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Damn, just goes to show how much we adapt to our local weather. No heavy coat until it's -15? :hairraise:

I'm don't want to leave my house when it gets into the high 20's, my Alaskan friends make fun of me. But then, I have no problem when it's 95, and they're sweating bullets.
 
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