oliver2-44 9,699 #1 Posted February 18, 2021 My sons sail boat looks like it's waiting to go ice sailing. For the last 2 days the lake channel behind my house has had a layer of ice forming on it. Last night we had some freezing rain/sleet that added to it. I've been here 25 years. We had a deep freeze event back in about 2011 where the channel froze a little, but no snow on the ground. Certainly a rare event around here. We've had power with no rolling blackouts for about 24hours. From what I hear on the news the rolling blackouts have lessened up significantly, but are still occurring in areas where major transmission lines or substations have problems. 7 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Handy Don 12,163 #2 Posted February 18, 2021 11 minutes ago, oliver2-44 said: My sons sail boat looks like it's waiting to go ice sailing. For the last 2 days the lake channel behind my house has had a layer of ice forming on it. Last night we had some freezing rain/sleet that added to it. I've been here 25 years. We had a deep freeze event back in about 2011 where the channel froze a little, but no snow on the ground. Certainly a rare event around here. We've had power with no rolling blackouts for about 24hours. From what I hear on the news the rolling blackouts have lessened up significantly, but are still occurring in areas where major transmission lines or substations have problems. Big event for all y'all. Hang in there. I live near the Hudson River and for the past few days there has been ice floating down. The Coast Guard normally keeps a channel open up to Albany all year round nowadays but there have been a few occasions in the past decade where it has frozen up solid and stopped river traffic. Into the early 1900's iceboating on the upper reaches of the river was very common, with the wealthy racing "ice yachts". Franklin Roosevelt's grandfather housed his 68 footer in a boathouse near the family's riverside home. 1 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Achto 27,509 #3 Posted February 18, 2021 At first I thought that you were going to show some ice sailing. Enjoy the snow for now. I hope your warm weather is right around the corner. 3 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ZXT 2,401 #4 Posted February 18, 2021 My family has a place on the Brazos river and it's frozen over as far as you can see.. We've never seen that before. I'm not about to go try to walk on it though Power had been rolling since Monday morning. Last night at about 10:30 the power came on and I haven't had to fire the generator up since. Hopefully it stays this way! I will be installing a transfer switch when this is all over so i can easily switch back and forth.. this business of having to go outside and move cords around every time the power went on/off got old really quick. I'd been running the 15kw portable gen to power some things in the house as well as the 1500w space heater in the well house. Once I had the house warm enough that the fireplace would pretty well keep it up while the power was out, I switched over to this little Montgomery Ward 1800w generator to run the space heater. I've had it for quite a while and almost forgot i had it stashed away. Gassed it up and it started on the second pull and worked like a champ! Sips fuel compared to the big gen. Stay warm! 7 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stevasaurus 22,711 #5 Posted February 18, 2021 Glad to see you guys are OK. I was worried about you all down there. Crazy what the news is showing us. 2 1 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pacer 3,168 #6 Posted February 19, 2021 Well, I'll share my tale from a bit more north of Oliver..... and we got it pretty bad too here in N La. Had a period of some 10 hrs of - I guess _ the 'rolling' power outage, would come on from 5 to 20 mins and go off for about same (had direct tv and computer going crazy, rebooting) Temps were running in the single digit range (1° at one point, 4th lowest in history for here!) so when the power was off my well pump wasnt working which meant the faucets wernt dripping and it quickly froze - lost water 3 days ago and just got it back couple hrs ago after the sun had brought the temp up to high 20's. The water loss was every bit as bad as electrics (think: TOILETS!! yuk!!} Between the 2 systems here at my house the first snow gave about 5-6" very powdery snow and the second system with all three types - snow/sleet/freezing rain got another 3-4 " Roads are still pretty bad, hopefully tomorrow we supposed to get past the 32° mark and may begin to see some improvement. As some TV weather head said " neither our homes or our selves just arent set up for this!!" 1 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Pullstart 62,803 #7 Posted February 19, 2021 Wear a few extra layers y’all, enjoy this crazy special event! For reference, I took a stroll with my bibs over my boots and a sweatshirt today in 13 degrees, worked up a sweat trudging through the snow! Keep ‘Er Movin’! 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ZXT 2,401 #8 Posted February 19, 2021 19 minutes ago, pacer said: Well, I'll share my tale from a bit more north of Oliver..... and we got it pretty bad too here in N La. Had a period of some 10 hrs of - I guess _ the 'rolling' power outage, would come on from 5 to 20 mins and go off for about same (had direct tv and computer going crazy, rebooting) Temps were running in the single digit range (1° at one point, 4th lowest in history for here!) so when the power was off my well pump wasnt working which meant the faucets wernt dripping and it quickly froze - lost water 3 days ago and just got it back couple hrs ago after the sun had brought the temp up to high 20's. The water loss was every bit as bad as electrics (think: TOILETS!! yuk!!} Between the 2 systems here at my house the first snow gave about 5-6" very powdery snow and the second system with all three types - snow/sleet/freezing rain got another 3-4 " Roads are still pretty bad, hopefully tomorrow we supposed to get past the 32° mark and may begin to see some improvement. As some TV weather head said " neither our homes or our selves just arent set up for this!!" Sounds like here! Whenever you're having rolling outages like that, unplug all sensitive electronics (Computers, TV's, routers, etc..) The constant and sudden on/off isn't good for them at all - and could quite possibly fry them if they got a good jolt when the power got thrown back on. Cheap insurance. 9 minutes ago, pullstart said: Wear a few extra layers y’all, enjoy this crazy special event! For reference, I took a stroll with my bibs over my boots and a sweatshirt today in 13 degrees, worked up a sweat trudging through the snow! Keep ‘Er Movin’! "Enjoy" I'll enjoy it once its back up into the 80s! 1 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
roadapples 6,983 #9 Posted February 19, 2021 Where's that dang global warming when we need it... 5 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tom2p 2,394 #10 Posted February 21, 2021 I'm ready for spring saw something last week I've ever seen in February: a robin initially I thought it was a female cardinal - but I'm fairly certain it was a robin we typically don't see robins until near spring / spring ... ? ... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cschannuth 3,816 #11 Posted February 21, 2021 6 hours ago, tom2p said: I'm ready for spring saw something last week I've ever seen in February: a robin initially I thought it was a female cardinal - but I'm fairly certain it was a robin we typically don't see robins until near spring / spring ... ? ... They were probably coming up from Texas to try to get warm… LOL 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
oliver2-44 9,699 #12 Posted February 21, 2021 14 hours ago, tom2p said: I'm ready for spring saw something last week I've ever seen in February: a robin initially I thought it was a female cardinal - but I'm fairly certain it was a robin we typically don't see robins until near spring / spring ... ? ... Sadly, earlier this week my dog brought me two frozen doves he found somewhere in the snow covered yard. They didn't fly quite far enough south. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tom2p 2,394 #13 Posted February 21, 2021 (edited) when I was snowmobiling could not get enough snow - just about prayed for cold weather and snow I would sometimes fall asleep watching the weather channel lol it did make winter more tolerable (enjoyable ?) and it went faster - and you also get a better appreciation / definition of cold weather ... Edited February 21, 2021 by tom2p Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
