The big winter storm a comin!

[clovishound]

It's going to be a pain for lots of people in the lower states. They don't get many storms like this, but we do, so most of our roads are pre-treated and snowplows are stationed throughout the state, utility crews are on standby, and municipal parking bans are already in effect.

We had a snowstorm here in Charleston in 2018. We only got about 6-10 inches, but the cold weather lasted for nearly a week afterwards. There was ice under the snow, and freezing temps lasted for nearly a week. It would get above freezing during the day, but below again after dark. The roads were a mess for days and days. They did bring in a couple plows for the main roads after a couple days, but it really disrupted things for quite a while. It doesn't make sense to have expensive equipment on hand for events that only happen once every couple decades or more. Usually a snow here is gone within a couple days, and the roads are pretty quick to clear themselves.

[markiver54]

With major power outages that are predicted, we are likely to lose our internet connections. Logging into the forum may have to wait for a while if predictions are correct.

[cooperhawk]

Here in Minnesnowda life goes on as usual. Just dress a little warmer is all.
we call it Friday.

[Sir Henry]

Here in Minnesnowda life goes on as usual. Just dress a little warmer is all.
we call it Friday.

The Prentice and Phillips School Districts are open and buses are on time. Business as usual. Most of the larger school districts are closed.

[Hatchdog]

Happy Friday Coop and Sir Henry.

I was telling my wife last night that it’s interesting to read about folks storm preps. I told her that most of us who are gun owners and hunters and outdoorsmen/women tend to be much more intelligent about storm preps. I do feel sorry for folks who live in apartments in bigger cities who don’t have the ability to run a generator for heat.

Best to all

[JEBar]

so far today, in preparation for the storm, we have moved our portable generator from the garage to the back of our pickup .... it must be at least 3 years since we last used it and I'm happy to be able to say she fired right up .... 15 gallons of pure gas have been purchased for generator use .... hopefully it won't be needed .... a rig to get some heat into our on demand water heater has been ordered and should arrive later today

[HenryFan]

JEBar -

pure gas = ethanol free gas?

Ethanol free gas is the only thing I use in an ATV, a side-by-side, small engines and an outboard motor. Even with ethanol free gas, I add a squirt of Stabil marine formula to the gas cans before purchasing gas.

I would use ethanol free in my motor vehicles but I don't think I can afford to do so.

[Ernie]

Use rec gas in mowers/blowers, generators, and my 1969 pick up. Also use stabil and keep 25-30 gallons on hand. It is pricey but I feel it is necessary.

[dave77]

Only a few days of mid 20's lows here and then back to right around freezing lows and highs back in the 40's. No snow in the forecast, I can do without the cold but would sure like to see more snow in the mountains or I'm likely to be short of irrigation water this Summer.

[daytime dave]

Oh joy, I just looked. We will likely get 18 inches of snow. Most of Upstate NY is supposed to get that. As long as it doesn't all come at once.

[BrokenolMarine]

Well, the weather has hit.  First we got some rain, which started in the afternoon. It turned to large sleet which iced over the sidewalks in the back yard and in front of the garage. We were watching an old Bond Movie, Hulu just dropped them all... took a break to let the dog out and noticed the snow they called for had finally started around 8pm...  Still snowing now and it's a few minutes to ten.  Don't know how long it will go on tonight, but we are supposed to get waves of sleet and snow thru Sunday night. 

We are fine, still have power in our area so far.  We won't lose power thanks to the Generac. 

Tina just found out that the Starlink dish is supposed to automatically heat to thaw snow and ice, we'll see how well it works.  (Didn't know it had that feature.)  With our old Dish based systems we'd lose internet as soon as the ice started. So far we haven't lost the signals. So, it looks like we won't lose internet either.

My daughter and Son-in-law in Southern Oklahoma finally went this week and got a 13k portable genny and the heavy duty extension cords to provide power for the things they need in the house when they lose power. They have been meaning to for years, but finally bit the bullet and did it. Now they are set as well. Their farm is rural and isolated so when it goes down it's a low priority for the utility company, just like ours. The utility companies tend to fix the outages that bring the most people back on line FIRST to get the numbers down, and those with special considerations. Then work their way down the list to get to the isolated outages.

My first house I bought when I left the Corps was at the END of a dead end road in farm country. They would rarely plow our road, they didn't clean our ditch lines, and we were LAST on the list if power went out. With only 12 houses on the 3.8 mile long road we just didn't justify the time when the big storms hit. We were all used to it, so neighbors worked together to maintain things...

[Ernie]

Good luck! Hope the forecasters are wrong. We got less than an inch last night with temps in the negative single digits. Sometimes the unfrozen Lake Michigan will help moderate the temperature and sometimes the lake will fill the sky with snow.

[Sir Henry]

Well, the weather has hit.  First we got some rain, which started in the afternoon. It turned to large sleet which iced over the sidewalks in the back yard and in front of the garage. We were watching an old Bond Movie, Hulu just dropped them all... took a break to let the dog out and noticed the snow they called for had finally started around 8pm...  Still snowing now and it's a few minutes to ten.  Don't know how long it will go on tonight, but we are supposed to get waves of sleet and snow thru Sunday night. 

We are fine, still have power in our area so far.  We won't lose power thanks to the Generac. 

Tina just found out that the Starlink dish is supposed to automatically heat to thaw snow and ice, we'll see how well it works.  (Didn't know it had that feature.)  With our old Dish based systems we'd lose internet as soon as the ice started. So far we haven't lost the signals. So, it looks like we won't lose internet either.

My daughter and Son-in-law in Southern Oklahoma finally went this week and got a 13k portable genny and the heavy duty extension cords to provide power for the things they need in the house when they lose power. They have been meaning to for years, but finally bit the bullet and did it. Now they are set as well. Their farm is rural and isolated so when it goes down it's a low priority for the utility company, just like ours. The utility companies tend to fix the outages that bring the most people back on line FIRST to get the numbers down, and those with special considerations. Then work their way down the list to get to the isolated outages.

My first house I bought when I left the Corps was at the END of a dead end road in farm country. They would rarely plow our road, they didn't clean our ditch lines, and we were LAST on the list if power went out. With only 12 houses on the 3.8 mile long road we just didn't justify the time when the big storms hit. We were all used to it, so neighbors worked together to maintain things...

What’s the report this morning? I’m told this area seldom looses power. Then they complain about how expensive it is.

[daytime dave]

It's currently -3 F here. We had a light dusting of snow overnight.

[BrokenolMarine]

Well, the weather has hit.  First we got some rain, which started in the afternoon. It turned to large sleet which iced over the sidewalks in the back yard and in front of the garage. We were watching an old Bond Movie, Hulu just dropped them all... took a break to let the dog out and noticed the snow they called for had finally started around 8pm...  Still snowing now and it's a few minutes to ten.  Don't know how long it will go on tonight, but we are supposed to get waves of sleet and snow thru Sunday night. 

We are fine, still have power in our area so far.  We won't lose power thanks to the Generac. 

Tina just found out that the Starlink dish is supposed to automatically heat to thaw snow and ice, we'll see how well it works.  (Didn't know it had that feature.)  With our old Dish based systems we'd lose internet as soon as the ice started. So far we haven't lost the signals. So, it looks like we won't lose internet either.

My daughter and Son-in-law in Southern Oklahoma finally went this week and got a 13k portable genny and the heavy duty extension cords to provide power for the things they need in the house when they lose power. They have been meaning to for years, but finally bit the bullet and did it. Now they are set as well. Their farm is rural and isolated so when it goes down it's a low priority for the utility company, just like ours. The utility companies tend to fix the outages that bring the most people back on line FIRST to get the numbers down, and those with special considerations. Then work their way down the list to get to the isolated outages.

My first house I bought when I left the Corps was at the END of a dead end road in farm country. They would rarely plow our road, they didn't clean our ditch lines, and we were LAST on the list if power went out. With only 12 houses on the 3.8 mile long road we just didn't justify the time when the big storms hit. We were all used to it, so neighbors worked together to maintain things...

What’s the report this morning? I’m told this area seldom looses power. Then they complain about how expensive it is.

Our area hasn't lost power yet, it's almost eight am on Saturday and the genny never kicked on. We started getting freezing rain yesterday afternoon, then thick heavy sleet soon after. As darkness fell, it turned to a mix of sleet and snow, then snow an hour later. It snowed until the wee hours, then stopped. We got about three or four inches of snow atop the ice layer. They are calling for more winter weather both today and tomorrow... But as promised, we never lost our starlink connection. So, that worked.

[Hatchdog]

Well, the weather has hit.  First we got some rain, which started in the afternoon. It turned to large sleet which iced over the sidewalks in the back yard and in front of the garage. We were watching an old Bond Movie, Hulu just dropped them all... took a break to let the dog out and noticed the snow they called for had finally started around 8pm...  Still snowing now and it's a few minutes to ten.  Don't know how long it will go on tonight, but we are supposed to get waves of sleet and snow thru Sunday night. 

We are fine, still have power in our area so far.  We won't lose power thanks to the Generac. 

Tina just found out that the Starlink dish is supposed to automatically heat to thaw snow and ice, we'll see how well it works.  (Didn't know it had that feature.)  With our old Dish based systems we'd lose internet as soon as the ice started. So far we haven't lost the signals. So, it looks like we won't lose internet either.

My daughter and Son-in-law in Southern Oklahoma finally went this week and got a 13k portable genny and the heavy duty extension cords to provide power for the things they need in the house when they lose power. They have been meaning to for years, but finally bit the bullet and did it. Now they are set as well. Their farm is rural and isolated so when it goes down it's a low priority for the utility company, just like ours. The utility companies tend to fix the outages that bring the most people back on line FIRST to get the numbers down, and those with special considerations. Then work their way down the list to get to the isolated outages.

My first house I bought when I left the Corps was at the END of a dead end road in farm country. They would rarely plow our road, they didn't clean our ditch lines, and we were LAST on the list if power went out. With only 12 houses on the 3.8 mile long road we just didn't justify the time when the big storms hit. We were all used to it, so neighbors worked together to maintain things...

What’s the report this morning? I’m told this area seldom looses power. Then they complain about how expensive it is.

Our area hasn't lost power yet, it's almost eight am on Saturday and the genny never kicked on. We started getting freezing rain yesterday afternoon, then thick heavy sleet soon after. As darkness fell, it turned to a mix of sleet and snow, then snow an hour later. It snowed until the wee hours, then stopped. We got about three or four inches of snow atop the ice layer. They are calling for more winter weather both today and tomorrow... But as promised, we never lost our starlink connection. So, that worked.

Good to know about Starlink as we’re thinking of switching to it. But right now they have a $1,000.00 surcharge for what they are calling “high demand area”. That just pisses my off.

[Sir Henry]

What’s the report this morning? I’m told this area seldom looses power. Then they complain about how expensive it is.

Our area hasn't lost power yet, it's almost eight am on Saturday and the genny never kicked on. We started getting freezing rain yesterday afternoon, then thick heavy sleet soon after. As darkness fell, it turned to a mix of sleet and snow, then snow an hour later. It snowed until the wee hours, then stopped. We got about three or four inches of snow atop the ice layer. They are calling for more winter weather both today and tomorrow... But as promised, we never lost our starlink connection. So, that worked.

Good to know about Starlink as we’re thinking of switching to it. But right now they have a $1,000.00 surcharge for what they are calling “high demand area”. That just pisses my off.

With high-speed fiber optics I paid zero to have them trench 300 yards and install it into the house. Plain internet was $39 to $79 a month. I got the lowest speed which will run all three tv’s at once plus a hundred channels and I’m $119 a month.

Meanwhile back to the freezing temperatures.

[fortyshooter]

Well we all set for what could be a big ice storm after some snow/sleet. Temps to be in high teens and 20's with freezing rain all day Sunday.
whole house Generac ready to go which runs on Natural Gas from the street and filling up containers for drinking water and buckets for toilet water just in case something goes down with city water or I have a frozen water line. Come on Springtime!

[BrokenolMarine]

We didn't have to pay a demand surcharge, but did have to buy the equipment direct from starlink and install it ourselves. Tina and my neighbor installed it in less than an hour using the app downloaded to the smartphone to aim the dish.

If we had gone thru a middleman, we would have had to pay them a hefty fee for the equipment, AND the installation, plus a higher monthly fee.

[cooperhawk]

Good to know about Starlink as we’re thinking of switching to it. But right now they have a $1,000.00 surcharge for what they are calling “high demand area”. That just pisses my off.

They have specials from time to time depending on demand in the area. In our area the equipment was completely free for the Gen3 Standard and is 60 bucks a month for the first year and then 80 bucks unlimited downloads with a speed of 200BPS.