USA snow and ice storm; gonna needing home repair

[Stormin Mormon]

Dec 5, 2013

News folks talking about the big ice and snow storm over central and mideast USA. Massive power cuts possible. Ice, and more.

Barometers are falling sharply!

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, We are just getting out of it. temp. dipped down to -30C(wind chill -40C) almost 2 feet of snow, strong wind. Snow drift buried many cars parked on the side of streets, abandoned on highways. Me and family is fine. Just couldn't walk our dog, Walter for whole week, too cold and icy for his paws.

[Pete C.]

Things are pretty well frozen over here in N. TX.

[Stormin Mormon]

Sorry to hear that. Hope you all are OK.

[Pete C.]

Ow. I was just there earlier this week and the weather was much nicer.

[nestork]

I still remember the blizzard that hit southern Manitoba on March 4,

1966. I was 10 years old at the time. That blizzard dumped about 3 feet of snow on us, but the wind blew it into drifts that were much higher than 3 feet. My family and I were living in a town of about 4400 people about 25 miles north of Winnipeg at the time. I remember there was a snow drift that went all the way to the roof of our house. My two sisters and me played by climbing up that snow drift onto the roof of our house and jumping off the roof on the other side of our house into the 3 or so feet deep snow there.

'The March 4 Blizzard of 1966 by George Siamandas'

We got a similar blizzard on November 7th and 8th of 1986. 'dnsyl57: Blizzard of 1986'

The most powerful local radio station, CJOB, was used as a public service bulletin board to get volunteers with snowmobiles to transport doctors and nurses to the local hospitals, as well as getting prescription drugs to people that needed them.

That was the only time I've ever seen snowmobiles driving up and down the streets of Winnipeg.

[Snag]

Here in N. central Ar we're past the icing phase , now it's just snowing heavily . Got like 6"-8" on the ground and still falling . At this stage of the storm I think it unlikely we'll lose power unless some idiot takes out a pole between here and wherever ours comes from .

[Stormin Mormon]

That happened to me, a week ago, last Friday. Wasn't even a storm, that day. Power out, two hours.

[Pete C.]

The ice covered trees can still fall if the wind picks up. I heard some guy in AR was killed last night when a tree fell on his camper :(

[clare]

Reached a high of +12C here in "the great white north" - Waterloo Ontario, yesterday. We've had about 2 inches of snow in total so far, and it's all gone at the moment. The Yamaha Snow Blower has the heated grips installed so I'm ready for it when it comes - and the new

7200 watt generator is ready to go as well.

BRING IT ON!!!!!!!

[clare]

In the late '70s and early '80s in Stratford Ontario, the mechancs at the Toyota dealer came to work on their snowmobiles and parked them on the roof of the garage - driving them up the snow drifts.(several times, IIRC) We haven't seen that kind of snow now for quite a few years. In the late '60s and early ''70s in nearby Elmira Ontario I ran an old ex-army powerwagon for a tow truck and may times I was busting drifts over the hood of the truck going out to retrieve stuck vehicles. Here in Waterloo I used the snow blower a couple times last year - Elmira and Startford (and London/Sarnia to the south) still get hit pretty hard - over 2 feet down London/Sarnia way last week.

[krw]

OMG! It's global COOLING! Better raise taxes *NOW*! It's for the Children!

[krw]

No. I don't follow Algore, either.

I don't mind the forecast too much, though. ...as long as "wet" isn't like last year's wet. The Northeast can have the Snow and cold, though. They deserve it.

[DerbyDad03]

The 1 story buildings at USCG LorSta Port Clarence AK would get drifted over on one side and be completely free of snow on the other. We would buy seal skin slippers from the local (local means the village 15 miles away) Eskimos and use them to ski off the roofs. When bought new, the hair was still on the bottom of the slippers and they were slicker on snow than anything else you could wear. It was next to impossible to keep your feet underneath you. Once the hair wore off and you were down to the skin, they weren't slippery enough to ski with.

On the side of the buildings that got drifted over, the heat from the windows would melt the drift outward a good 20 feet until it looked like a cave, complete with stalactites and stalagmites made of ice.

Those of us on the side without the snow attached small wooden boxes lined with styrofoam to the window sill, after pulling out the corks that sealed the ventilation holes. I could chill a couple of 7oz bottles of beer in the time it took me to change from my dungaree uniform to my civvies. One guy put a can of coke in his box and it split open in about 10 minutes. It was pretty neat to keep a case of beer on a shelf knowing that you could have a cold one in a matter of minutes.

Streets? You had streets? ;-)

[Snag]

AAAAaaaghhhhh don't say that ! I live in a camper out in the woods , and there are at least a dozen trees that could possibly land on my camper ! But actually I'm not too worried , we don't have that much ice on the trees and lines .

[Stormin Mormon]

I'm remembering one day seeing two snow machines in the parking lot of Burger King. I thought that was unusual enough, that I took a picture.

[Nate Nagel]

That was normal when I was working in the UP one winter. You could pick up two different kinds of maps at your average gas station; one map for roads and one for snowmobile trails. Many businesses' parking lots had access to both, especially restaurants/bars.

nate

[DerbyDad03]

You'll find that wherever snowmobiles are popular. It keeps the noise and fumes from the machines separate from the usually quiet and relatively odor free automobiles.

They will often plow the areas differently, leaving more snow in the snowmobile lot.

[clare]

That used to be common here too, and particularly a bit farther north and west - but for the last 10 years or so if you want to snowmobile here, you need to trailer for an hour or more to find decent snow conditions. (Waterloo/Elmira Ontario) Up around Wiarton, Chesley, Arthur and up into Muskoka the conditions are generally better, but there have been years when most of the trails even there have been closed most or all of the season.

[clare]

Up here, when the snowmobiling is good, the snow machines, cars, and pickups share the same parling lots - with the snowmachines sometimes parked on top of the snow piles.