Posted on 01/04/2014 7:33:23 PM PST by Windflier
Experts have warned that Friday's freezing temperatures were simply a warm-up and that this weekend will bring a big chill for 140 million people - almost half the nation - that could prove fatal for the unprepared - and will continue through the winter.
With the Northeast still reeling from the huge storm that dumped as much as two-feet of snow across the region and was responsible for the deaths of 16 people, a new weather system is threatening to bring record low temperatures to the Midwest as a polar vortex barrels over the United States.
'It's the mother lode of cold air,' said Weather Channel coordinating meteorologist Tom Moore. 'On the heels of what will be the coldest air of the season, will be dangerous, life-threatening winds.'
Because of the winds, 'It may feel as cold as negative 50 to negative 60 on Sunday night over sections of the north-central states,' the National Weather Service said to NBC News. 'In those conditions, frost bite sets in on exposed skin within five minutes.'
Moore said that as the freakishly cold weather hits the region, authorities need to act fast to avoid a human catastrophe because of the chill.
'Anybody living out on the streets needs to be rounded up and put into a shelter,' said Moore to MSNBC News.
'The repercussions ... could be deadly, and I'm afraid we're going to see cases like that.'
The temperature predictions are startling: 25 below zero in Fargo, North Dakota, minus 31 in International Falls, Minnesota, and 15 below in Indianapolis and Chicago.
The so-called 'polar vortex' will send cold air piled up at the North Pole down to the U.S., funneling it as far south as the Gulf Coast.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
In Houston when I was growing up we thought that winter meant wear a jacket, and not winter meant, don’t wear a jacket.
Since we always wore our tennis shoes and blue jeans and cotton shirts, we froze and stayed miserable at 35 degrees and thought that was just the way it was.
What I learned living in Wisconsin is that everyone dresses for the cold, so it can be 10 below zero, and you can be fairly comfortable.
My paternal grandfather was from Panola County, Mississippi. That’s in the northern end of the state. He was born in 1906, and probably saw a few cold winters there.
Funny how climate swings from generation to generation in different parts of the country. When the first Americans came to settle Texas, it had a milder climate than today. If they’d come here and experienced summers like we have now, they would have packed up and gone home.
Heh! In North Dakota we all had electrical plugs hanging out of our car grills so we didn’t have to run the cars all night and that was almost 40 years ago. Guess the word moves slowly getting over to MN.
...especially when you have to wait a day for it to drain!
Obviously neither of you are using Amsoil.
In the 70s that was the norm in Minot, Fargo, and GF. At Minot AFB duties went on, freezing on the way to missile sites and launch control centers, security duties, bomber-tanker alert and maintenance. Nothing stopped, you just made sure you followed all of the cold weather safety rules and took breaks from the cold. That never helped though when the brine lines froze in the LCCs or you were traveling across the plains in a blue goose with crap to non-existent heating. You still felt the bite. The people with real problems are the ones who don’t know enough to do the right things and to stay inside when necessary.
Why not Minot? Freezins the reason.
Have we become a nation of wusses?
I grew up for the first 6 years in a logging company camp building in northern Vermont.
It was in a valley surrounded by high mountains.
The sun didn't get in much in the winter, and the cold settled in to the bottom of the valley.
A month of never getting up to 40 below zero was normal.
One of the first recollections I have is waking up, in the hottest room in the house, the kitchen.
You didn't need to look out the window as you could see between the cracks in the boards.
I saw a glass bottle of milk on the kitchen table with the milk frozen and curling down like an upside down "J"
Since, my parents informed me it was 42 below zero in the kitchen.
That was years before Colonel Albert J. Amatuzio had invented Amsoil.
Every night you drained the oil from your vehicle, brought it inside and set it in a pot on the stove to warm it up in the morning before dumping it back in the engine. You also brought your battery inside for the night.
In the morning, you would quickly dump in the oil, install the battery and start the engine before the oil and battery cooled down.
In 1976 I converted my truck to Amsoil. The day before, when starting it with petroleum oil in it, it took over 270 amps to crank the engine over.
The lifters clattered for a while, as per normal, and I had to ease out the clutch so the cold gear oil in the transmission wouldn't stall the engine.
The next morning, after changing all the lubricants to Amsoil, it took less than 70 amps to start the engine.
No lifter clattering, I could dump the clutch and hear no decrease in the engine RPMs. The transmission shifted easily, unlike the day before.
You only have to change the stuff every 25,000 miles, so since 1976, I've changed it in the spring and fall, never having to crawl under in the winter.
Not that I don't go out in the winter.
I've been out chopping and skidding logs at 40 below zero, dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and a knit hat.
You just have to have a parka ready for the moment you stop working or you'll become an icicle.
I understand the science behind it. But just tell me the temperature. I’ll determine what the wind makes it feel like when I step out in it:-)
Might want to re-think that strategy if you're caught still on the highway.
I always carry complete survival gear including food and water for 3 days.
The gear includes Mickey Mouse boots (military surplus), a winter sleeping bag, a tent from the Oz folks that you just remove from its' container and toss it up, it's ready to occupy in 3 seconds, a snowmobile suit, and a whole lot of other stuff.
The reason for the tent is so if I'm stuck while still on the road, I can be comfortably tenting out in the woods nearby, so I'll hear the crashing sound when the snowplow eventually destroys my Jeep.
I don't want to be in the Jeep at that time.
See my other post about sleeping at 42 below zero.
And that was not "wind chill" 40 below, but actual 40 below, where the Fahrenheit and Celsius thermometers read the same number.
Even if you're poor, by dumpster diving for the right stuff, you can sleep quite comfortably at 40 below zero.
I've never since replaced a car battery before at least 10 years of use.
Since it takes so many fewer amps to crank over a cold engine with Amsoil in it than conventional oils, or even many other synthetics, the batteries last longer.
The easier, and therefore faster cranking over means much faster starts, further reducing wear on a battery.
It's being charged much sooner rather than still being discharged.
Ditto, only my commute is 114 miles, mostly through the wilderness and mountains of New Hampshire.
I keep a very complete survival kit and extraction equipment with me at all times.
Since we like overlanding into really remote areas with our Unimog or Jeep or Land Rovers and Rokon, we are used to being ready for any situation.
That readiness has paid off a few times, sometimes to extract ourselves from bad situations, but mostly to assist other, less prepared people.
TEMPERATURES for my area....Northwest Pa.
MONDAY TO AROUND 8 TO 15 BELOW ZERO MONDAY NIGHT...RECOVERING TO 3 BELOW TO 5 ABOVE ZERO
TUESDAY FALLING TO 5 BELOW TO 2 ABOVE ZERO TUESDAY NIGHT.
* WIND CHILL...
25 TO 40 BELOW ZERO IN THE LOWER ELEVATIONS AND AS LOW AS 45 BELOW IN THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS MONDAY NIGHT...
20 TO 30 BELOW ON TUESDAY...AND 15 TO 25 BELOW TUESDAY NIGHT.
You get acclimated to it after a while.
Forty Below and snow just means good snowmobiling, skiing, ice fishing, snowshoeing, etc., up here in northern New Hampshire.
I can't believe the idiot weather morons on TV and radio calling a snowstorm and a little cold weather "bad weather".
It means billions of dollars and a LOT of fun for northern NH.
Geothermal. I wonder periodically why we can’t tap into the Yosemite caldera. Seems enough geothermal resource there to supply a good deal of energy
Nature worshipers would squawk. That’s what I’d think.
I looked up Unimog on Wikipedia. It’s a neat looking truck. But I got the idea it’s not sold in the USA unless customized for import on an individual basis. (Arnold Schwarzeneggar did that with a Unimog.) How did you get the Unimog in here?
What should happen now is a full scale attack on the scientific community asking the basic question...
“ok you fixed global warming. How do you plan to fix the global cooling you caused? How are we going to produce crops? How are we going to heat homes? How are we going to prevent millions of people from dying because they cannot afford clothing? You did this. Now fix it!”
Ok, ok, ok. Be sure to only spray a little deodorant. We don’t want to ruin the fine reputation of FreeperDom.
‘It’s January.’
Oh my God!
When did that happen?
I’d be tempted.
But I don’t believe in worldly solutions to what, at root, are spiritual problems. Scientists got way too arrogant to realize what was by definition out of their realistic domain of study. They whipped together some hocus pocus. They talked like they could suss out what God is up to here. Well, no they can’t.
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