Anyone enjoying consecutive days and nights of too cold weather?

[Blue2Orange]

Grown cold wimpy with aging and our new warmer winters. Actually not real cold and not a real long stretch relative to the "good old days". But I'm a wimp.
6th consecutive night with below 0F lows. Forecast is for sub 0F nights until Sunday. Oh yeah! Today is sunny and single digits above zero. But the wind is a bit annoying. Trees swaying in the gust were a hint things will be brutal at the end of the driveway. Pretty drifts and wind blown free form snow sculptures. No fun digging out the drift blocking the mailbox. The face hurt facing the wind.

The good is cold enough to avoid the ice that some regions are dealing with. Rather experience a short bout of frozen face v. no power for???

 

[PoTreeBoy]

I'll take anything over no power and water. I'm in west Tn with power and water, but the streets are ice. I haven't been out since Friday evening, should have bought more bread.

But my L35 Katy, my nephew and my sister are in north central Ms. They got sleet and freezing rain. Power went off early Sunday morning. They had water from their rural association until yesterday (Monday) afternoon, then lost that due to a broken line. My nephew and BIL got the road cleared yesterday so they could get to the store for generator gas. Fortunately, BIL has gas and diesel at his store. The gas stations that have fuel and power to pump are running out and the roads are too bad for trucks to deliver. Propane is in short supply also.

Apparently, a lot of the electrical problem is from TVA's transmission lines to the substations, and when TVA gets that fixed a lot of customers will be up. About 70% of the county is still without. There's a band from the Ms delta across to Corinth in the northeast corner of the state that got walloped.

 

[NCL4701]

Not a fan of the cold. The 4” of sleet we got was pretty fun yesterday sledding on the dam and sledding behind the Mule. I made the mistake of driving first. Wife apparently thought I was a little rough with her. When we switched I was kind of glad the Mule tops out at about 30 mph as I got the impression she was giving back a little more than she got. All in good fun, though. Ran around the trails a bit with the Mule after and went for about a mile hike on the north trails. Snow and fresh sleet can be fun, especially since it’s no longer common to get enough to play. Seems like we used to get at least a couple decent snows each winter when I was a kid.

It all melted just a little yesterday and refroze overnight, so today our 4” of sleet was more like a 2” sheet of solid ice. Could barely walk on it. Being retired, we can just stay put and wait for it to melt away, so nothing to really complain about.

Predictions were for us to get the ice storm parts of TN got. We were as prepared as we could be, but very glad we didn’t get freezing rain this time. We’ve been hit like that before and I don’t care to repeat the experience.

 

[armylifer]

When I read mule, I was thinking about an animal, not the motorized version.

 

[PoTreeBoy]

Not a fan of the cold. The 4” of sleet we got was pretty fun yesterday sledding on the dam and sledding behind the Mule. I made the mistake of driving first. Wife apparently thought I was a little rough with her. When we switched I was kind of glad the Mule tops out at about 30 mph as I got the impression she was giving back a little more than she got. All in good fun, though. Ran around the trails a bit with the Mule after and went for about a mile hike on the north trails. Snow and fresh sleet can be fun, especially since it’s no longer common to get enough to play. Seems like we used to get at least a couple decent snows each winter when I was a kid.

It all melted just a little yesterday and refroze overnight, so today our 4” of sleet was more like a 2” sheet of solid ice. Could barely walk on it. Being retired, we can just stay put and wait for it to melt away, so nothing to really complain about.

Predictions were for us to get the ice storm parts of TN got. We were as prepared as we could be, but very glad we didn’t get freezing rain this time. We’ve been hit like that before and I don’t care to repeat the experience. View attachment 168960 View attachment 168961 View attachment 168963

Looks like you missed most of the ice? My trees didn't fare too well.

 

[jimh406]

Like most in Montana, we are pretty prepared for cold weather although this has been a warm year so far. Grandkids have been able sled a day or two on a couple of inches of snow.

I have had my plow on my Polaris Ranger for about three months, but I haven't used it yet. I haven't put the chains on it or the tractor yet. I'm thinking we'll likely have some deeper snow before end of Winter which is usually about end of April here.

I feel for you guys that can't be prepared and/or have been devastated by ice with power outages. Fwiw, in my part of Montana, we rarely have ice storms.

 

[dlsmith]

We are already above normal for snowfall this winter, so I have been able to use my JD430 with a blower more than in the last 3 years combined. It hasn't been above 20° in over 3 weeks, and has hovered around 0° to 10° for a couple of days at a time. The cold doesn't really bother me that much, I have good cold weather gear, but when it's this cold, I'm not able to work in the shop as it isn't insulated well enough to be able to get it to a comfortable temperature inside. So, I'm am getting some cabin fever, and do wonder down to the shop for an hour or so and tinker around with one thing or another, until my fingers get too cold. The latest weather report says we may actually get to 30° once or twice in the next two weeks, but will continue to be in the teens and low twenties well into February.

 

[NCL4701]

Looks like you missed most of the ice? My trees didn't fare too well.
View attachment 168968

That sucks.

We’re supposed to be harvesting about 40 acres of pines sometime later this year. If we’d gotten the 1/2”+ of freezing rain they predicted, that would have been an expensive storm for us.

 

[PoTreeBoy]

I talked Dad into cutting our inheritance about 10 years ago. There's the risk of fire, tornado, ice and beetles that can totally wipe out a 40ish year investment. It upsets some people, I had to explain to one neighbor that they're a crop and get harvested when ready.

The trees on the right of that picture were thinned when the big trees were cut. They look bad now, but they should be ok. To the left are some of the 9ish year replant. They're ready to be thinned, hopefully they provided mutual support and will recover.

What's the market like near you? We can sell saw logs but we don't have much pulp market, and the haul is so far the landowner gets almost nothing. Maybe $100/load, that's if we can even find someone to cut it. Fortunately, I'm not relying on the income! I'll try to thin them myself and leave the cuts on the ground. The rabbits love me.

 

[NCL4701]

Market here isn’t great. We have a private forester handling the sale and replant. I know some things and have some contacts, but that’s an area totally out of my wheelhouse.

Our forester tells me large saw logs are OK at the moment but pulp and small logs aren’t good. He’s supposed to be doing a survey next week and then bid it out in the next few months whenever the market looks favorable.

I need the statutory protections of the forestry program due to development pressure and the associated politics, but don’t need the money. I’d be happy if the market for what we have precluded cutting as we’re never required to harvest unless we make a profit. But if we do harvest, might as well make as much as we can from it.

 

[Blue2Orange]

There was a blog posted that noted a positive factor of consecutive days of sub 0 temps. Especially the real cold that northern MN has been experiencing. Emerald ash bore and pine bark beetle larvae have a high mortality rate. Doesn't get cold enough on the South Shore of L. Superior. But all or most our ash trees are long gone. So far, pine bark beetle do not seem to be an issue.

Stayed above 0F last night. Balmy 1F low at sunrise. No wind! Another good thing about cold. Still lot of open water over L. Superior. Warm moist air lifts and then drops as snow. Powder day at the ski area. There were two of us lined up at lift opening . Chalet was packed. Wimps. "Never" too cold for powder runs. What stashes of powder became tracked up after couple hours. Butt got cold. Hard plastic chair seats. My butt told me to head home. I did.

 

[Runs With Scissors]

I’m enjoying the hell out of this “sub-zero” stuff.

I just got up to the “cabin” and started a fire.

For a “city boy” there is nothing better than an “up north fire”.

Should be 15 or 20 inchs of good ice, so setting up the shanty(s) will be easy.

@Paul Allwood has my deepest condolences…………I simply could not take that heat.

But the COLD…………I love it.


I bought a “skeety thrower” on a whim, and we are going to “Ice fish, and shoot skeet” for a few days.

Like my SIL says…………...There is no such thing as “bad weather”…….Only “bad gear”….

Drinking, shooting skeet, fishing, and NOT WORKING………….Priceless……..

 

[Tughill Tom]

A couple of pic's from this mornings Groomer run, closing in on 150 inches to date.

 

[bearbait]

After the summer we just had I'll take the cold chill of winter anytime. 69 years old and never seen a dry summer like the last one we just had, had me checking the well every Monday morning.

 

[WFM]

The entire month of December here was brutal cold. I burned more wood in December then I ever remember.
I have fuel oil in my tank thats five yrs old. We just dont run the oil furance. BUT not this winter. With below zero every night in January I turn on the furance before bed time as I will again tonight.
Our last storm was 18" of dry powder. Lots and lots of plowing and bucketing to get things opened up.

 

[TheOldHokie]

Well it looks like its battery time. I left the 5 year old L3901 outside last night and at 4°F this morning it would not crank strong enough to start. Cranked strong and started right up when I jumped it with the car.

Dan