And if your car gets stuck in a ditch, stay in it! (Unless there’s a risk it will be hit.) The car provides protection from the cold and windchill, even if the heater isn’t working.
In winter, I try and avoid driving anywhere outside of the city, because flat prairie + winds = snow blowing across the road, making the road difficult to see. Ditches, too, as the wind and snow just swirls around in them. And if you don’t drive cautiously, you’re likely to come around a bend, and run smack-dab into a snowdrift.
One winter, I had to get to a town about thirty miles (50 km) away. Conditions weren’t great, so I just took my time—I don’t think I exceeded 35 mph (60 km/h) on a road that is posted at 60 mph (100 km/h). The road is double-tracked, so I could just putt-putt along in the right-hand lane. I got passed a lot.
Anyway, on that short trip, I counted eight cars that had gone off the road. Be careful with winter intercity driving, especially so on the prairies.
Back in my commuting days, I used to see that a lot. The vehicles in the ditch were almost always pickup trucks and SUVs, whose drivers were apparently convinced that due to their wise choice of vehicle they were invulnerable to road conditions. Occasionally one of the vehicles I’d see in the ditch would be one that had just recently passed me, obviously going way too fast for the conditions. Sometimes it was hard to tell because it was upside down.
Trucks and SUVs do have a major advantage over cars in prairie driving: height. When I was driving my Acura, if I got passed, the snow that was kicked up would obscure my vision for several seconds. I just had to hope that my last glimpse of the road as being straight was accurate.
SUVs and trucks put the driver high enough, so snow squalls like that generally aren’t enough to block vision. That’s why we have an SUV now. (That doesn’t mean I drive like it’s summer time!)
One of the multi-purpose charges under the road code available to the police for accidents in the winter: “driving too fast for road conditions”. That charge is almost impossible to beat, when it’s being heard by a judge who lives and drives in Saskatchewan.
When I lived on the farm in Saskatchewan, I noticed that the house, the barn, the outhouse, chicken coop and shop all had steel rings bolted to their exterior walls. I asked my grandfather about them. and he said that in the winter if there was a bad snow forecast they would tie ropes around those rings between the buildings.
In Saskatchewan, whiteout conditions are easy to come by. You just need a snowstorm with some wind to churn up the snow. Farmers have died trying to go to the outhouse or to the barn to feed animals and losing their way in a blizzard. So if we had to do that, you’d grab the rope and follow it.
In the years I was there we never had to do it, and never even tied the ropes on, but by then we had an indoor toilet so no need to go out at night in a blizzard.
Sinclair Ross deals with blizzards and lonely farm houses in “The Painted Door”.
Heh, yeah. Even in sunny Texas with an AWD vehicle, I know I stop exactly as badly as anyone else when road conditions are bad. Remember, everyone: you pretty much all have the same number of tires and brakes!
And yeah, we’re looking for a couple of days of possible weather conditions here that we’re constitutionally unprepared for. Good luck, everyone! I hope to stay home.
Also ground clearance.
Low yesterday was -5 high was 5 Fahrenheit. Power went off for about 2 hours this morning. We heat with a free standing propane cast iron stove. So a power outage doesn’t affect heat. But continuous cloudy days really does. The sun does a tremendous job of heating up the house (it’s passive solar).
We are at 11,200 feet it’s windy as shit. Can’t tell how much snow has fallen, but it’s blowing in. I’m going to have to get out and plow today or tomorrow for sure.
Weather for my area by NOAA -
…WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 5 PM MST SUNDAY…
- WHAT…Heavy snow. Additional snow accumulations between 2 and 21
inches. Winds gusting as high as 70 mph.
heh.
Isn’t there an election in Iowa on Monday? How’s the weather there?
Blizzarding, wind chill watch. Interstate closed due to whiteouts. Should be interesting.
Basically only committed Republicans will turn out:
Iowans will wake up to temperatures more than 15 degrees below zero on Monday morning. Nearly the entire state will fail to climb above zero degrees Monday afternoon, the exception being the far southeastern portion of the state that may reach a degree or two above zero. This would be the first time since February of 2021 that the high temperature in Des Moines fails to reach zero degrees.
Add winds to this bitter cold and wind chill will reach life-threatening levels at minus 20 to minus 40 degrees for the entire day.
These extreme conditions could be dangerous for Iowans waiting to caucus and could also present accessibility issues — with some campaigns fearing caucus goers’ cars will fail to start or break down on their way to their locations.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/12/politics/iowa-caucuses-weather-turnout/index.html
Presumably, not only did you have indoor plumbing but also no creatures in the barn needing to be taken care of.
Also: even in the day you can get lost in a whiteout.
I was once pruning a vineyard when a snow squall came up so thick that I couldn’t, in full daylight, see my hand stretched out at arm’s length in front of me. I grabbed onto the vineyard wires and felt my way out to the end of the row. By the time I got there it had let up enough that I could just see my car parked maybe ten feet away; I stayed there in the car until it let up enough to see to drive home. That was only a squall, not a midwest blizzard; so that wasn’t anywhere near long enough to freeze (especially in winter pruning clothing.)
Well, we didn’t have indoor plumbing until my Grandfather built a new house when I was 11. It was just a chemical toilet, only to use in emergencies.
We just never had a serious blizzard with whiteout conditions during the day while I lived there. And if it stormd at night, we used the indoor toilet. But I mostly spent summers on the farm, living in the city with my mom during most school years.
Left Coast Portland checking in with a legit blizzard going on–it’s right about 14F right now, sustained winds in the 30mph range with gusts over 50mph, snowing briskly and trees are falling all over the city and taking the power with them. I have a propane heater that uses a battery to power the pilot striker so I’m good for heat and have several fully charged battery backups to keep my phone and tablet going in case the power goes out. Last year I had some issues with frozen pipes leaking in the building I don’t live in any more but I put a ton more insulation around the pipes and I’m running an oil radiator in the affected room so I’m hoping all will be well. Last year when it all went pear shaped I had to run a hose from my neighbor’s outside bib to get water into my tiny house since there’s no main shutoff for the crapshack and if the water goes weird it has to be shut off at the street. I would very much prefer to not repeat this particular experience.
Montreal’s forecast storm of at least 15 cm (about 6 inches) fizzled away to almost nothing with rain turning the little snow that fell into a slushy mess. Little effect on daily operations, except pedestrians shouldn’t walk too close to the curb on busy streets. Much higher amounts a half hour outside the city - ski resorts love it!
Here in Memphis, I’ve been anxiously watching the forecast. Which makes me sad because I used to love it when we would actually get some snow. But for the last three years, we have gotten once-a-decade type of winter events at least once each year. After getting snow tomorrow and Monday, the forecast is calling for at least 10 days with the nightly lows in the single digits and teens and highs below freezing. That is not normal. Or, I guess, that is becoming the new normal. It’s already been cold enough that I brought the neighborhood cats inside a few days ago. They hated it for a week last year, they are really going to hate this year’s imprisonment. They are safe and warm in the spare room but there’s just no reasoning with them. 
Hopefully, we won’t get ice this time so maybe there will be no power outages. But there’s no way to know what the drain on the utility system will be for this prolonged freezing. I’ve stocked up on bottled water because the last two years brought about boil-water advisories since the water infrastructure failed. I’ve done all I can to make sure the house is ready and am supplied enough that I won’t need to leave the house. But the anxiety won’t go away.
Until recently, this has been the mildest of winters. At Toronto Airport, the lowest temperature this season has been a mere -6C, unheard of by January. Starting tomorrow daytime temperatures will be -12C for a few weeks. That ain’t bad, and doesn’t compare to the -35Cs out west…
When asked “Are you friz?”
He replied, “Yes I is,
But we don’t call it cold in Québec.”
Bugger! burst pipe in back bathroom, even though I had the taps dripping. Plumbing/heating guy was able to come within 20 minutes, but he looked tired; going from job to job.
When he left, I wished I could have offered him a shot of Scotch to keep warm, but gave him some home-made cookies instead.
It would be entirely normal for here in upstate New York, starting somewhere around early December. And we’re about to get some of it – for the first time this “winter”. The ground hadn’t frozen yet as of this morning. The lilac was starting to bud out.
Thanks for bringing the cats in.