Coooooooold in Texas

My drive to dinner tonight down Beltline Rd. A lot of restaurants closed tonight and the ones open are dead. Of all my years working in Dallas I’ve only seen this once before here.
3F740F7B-98F4-4E2E-BE99-A9A795AEA3A9.jpeg
Still pretty tame compared to what I learned in. I took my drivers test in a foot of snow and had to put my moms Ramcharger in 4H to get out of the snow bank I was told to parallel park in. The DMV guy deducted 2 points because he said I had too much confidence for a 16 year old.
 
My drive to dinner tonight down Beltline Rd. A lot of restaurants closed tonight and the ones open are dead. Of all my years working in Dallas I’ve only seen this once before here.
View attachment 226458 Still pretty tame compared to what I learned in. I took my drivers test in a foot of snow and had to put my moms Ramcharger in 4H to get out of the snow bank I was told to parallel park in. The DMV guy deducted 2 points because he said I had too much confidence for a 16 year old.
I recall 1983 when lake worth froze, 2010 we had a foot of snow tho it was not this cold.
 
79B001FC-EB0B-472A-AC2A-90DF7FC00BA4.jpeg

My dumbass forgot to put cardboard on the windshield so it took nearly half an hour to get it clear enough to drive to work.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: TJ Starting
I have a whole house generator if the power goes out 15 seconds it starts, 30 seconds I've got power. The model I have has the winter package so no worries.

I stop breathing if I don't have my Cpap machine on so before I got the generator I had a redneck set up. I would park my car near the window then run an extension from the aux plug in the car. The Cpap will run off 12v.
 
I'm disappointed with the weak winters, these temps are good news for me because maybe my area will actually get some real snow. Here's the data for Syracuse, one of the "snowiest cities" in the U.S. that's supposed to average 140 a year. I usually drive up north on 81 or 11 between Syracuse and Watertown (I might go tonight if it drops hard enough) when I want to cruise in the snow because you can expect 175-200 inches a year in that corridor. There's so many snow plows and of course incompetent drivers, so I don't slip out the door until midnight.

Onondaga County
Winter of 2017-2018 150 inches
Winter of 2018-2019 No more than 125 inches.
Winter of 2019-2020 No more than 100 inches.
Winter of 2020-2021 51 inches currently. This isn't going to jump past 100 at all unless these temps keep going into march.
 
The forecast is for -22F tonight. Then much lower for wind chills. The house heat keeps up but if a vent is closed in one place and others open, we get hot and cold spots that vary with wind direction.
 
Was scrolling through some news stories this morning, and it's quite amusing how people are blowing a gasket over power outages.

Obviously there are some differences, but this is something that half the country deals with every year. I'm seeing a lot of people thinking it's criminal to have to sit in the cold due to power outages. lol c'mon
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jack72 and InOmaha
Was scrolling through some news stories this morning, and it's quite amusing how people are blowing a gasket over power outages.

Obviously there are some differences, but this is something that half the country deals with every year. I'm seeing a lot of people thinking it's criminal to have to sit in the cold due to power outages. lol c'mon
Funny part to me is the folks bring electric cars into the conversation. Saying “If the gov wants us to have electric cars and the current infrastructure can’t even provide adequate power for us during the winter we’re all gonna die!”. Most people don’t realize having an electric car parked in your garage can function as a “back up battery” and power your whole house. Not saying we are ready for it yet or that the technology is ready for the majority of folks but it could help in situations like this. At least in theory.
 
  • Like
Reactions: InOmaha
Was scrolling through some news stories this morning, and it's quite amusing how people are blowing a gasket over power outages.

Obviously there are some differences, but this is something that half the country deals with every year. I'm seeing a lot of people thinking it's criminal to have to sit in the cold due to power outages. lol c'mon
I was talking to my brother in-law a few weeks ago, and we got on the subject of how people are wimps. If most of us had to live like people did in the 1800's we wouldn't make it a week. Then I told him a few years back a group had planned on following Lewis, and Clark's expeditions route on horseback just like they had done in 1803-06. They didn't make it a week.

I survived the ice storm of 98 that lasted 11 days. I think Texas can handle a few days.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jack72 and InOmaha
Was scrolling through some news stories this morning, and it's quite amusing how people are blowing a gasket over power outages.

Obviously there are some differences, but this is something that half the country deals with every year. I'm seeing a lot of people thinking it's criminal to have to sit in the cold due to power outages. lol c'mon
It’s more complicated than that.

The problem is half of the wind turbines are frozen that provide a lot of the electricity to the regional grid. That is putting an extra burden on other power plants which have their own issues with freezing up. The power plants are doing these rolling blackouts to be able to shunt the power to critical infrastructure.

Losing power down here during sub-freezing temps is causing lots of issues Besides just sitting in the cold. I haven’t lost power so it is still warm in my house. But theres a difference in the way houses are constructed here compared to northern climates. However, I have frozen pipes because they are in the outside walls and the pipes are not insulated. Hopefully, they don’t rupture.
 
It got down to -23F this morning. With wind it felt like -45F at times. The nose hairs were freezing while walking from my car into work.

But it was 3F going home so we're warming up.
 
Funny part to me is the folks bring electric cars into the conversation. Saying “If the gov wants us to have electric cars and the current infrastructure can’t even provide adequate power for us during the winter we’re all gonna die!”. Most people don’t realize having an electric car parked in your garage can function as a “back up battery” and power your whole house. Not saying we are ready for it yet or that the technology is ready for the majority of folks but it could help in situations like this. At least in theory.

But then how do you get to work in the morning?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Fixer6
But then how do you get to work in the morning?
Ain’t nobody going to work in this shit. Seriously though, I am not a big supporter of electric cars for everyone immediately. But I could see a gentle transition where a lot of families have one electric and a gas car. Or more efficient and fun hybrids that people actually want to drive. Lots of problems to solve no doubt. Electric is a good viable option, but it will take some adjustments and additions to the infrastructure to work in large scale.
 
  • Like
Reactions: InOmaha
I'd love a diesel electric jeep conversion. Torque up the wazoo.

But I have to go to work. Snow, cold, whatever. They let us out early once when snow was coming down at 2" an hour and 6" was on the ground. That's why my primary vehicle has always been an AWD or 4WD.

I went in at -19F this morning. So any electric vehicle needs that as a design requirement.

I'm running the heater and it needs to get me home after 9 +hours in the parking lot at below zero temps. I leave in the dark and come home in it during late November to early January. The sun goes down by 6:30 now.

That's why I'm more of a hybrid fan than EV. A diesel hybrid is a max efficiency and range design with power and torque. On top of it no change in current infrastructure.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: AMS417
I'd love a diesel electric jeep conversion. Torque up the wazoo.

But I have to go to work. Snow, cold, whatever. They let us out early once when snow was coming down at 2" an hour and 6" was on the ground. That's why my primary vehicle has always been an AWD or 4WD.

I went in at -19F this morning. So any electric vehicle needs that as a design requirement.

I'm running the heater and it needs to get me home after 9 +hours in the parking lot at below zero temps. I leave in the dark and come home in it during late November to early January. The sun goes down by 6:30 now.

That's why I'm more of a hybrid fan than EV. A diesel hybrid is a max efficiency and range design with power and torque. On top of it no change in current infrastructure.
Yup, diesel electric hybrid could be great if we could overcome the emissions issues. A true electric / range extended hybrid like the Volt was supposed to be would be awesome. Especially if we have a bunch of them hooked into the grid helping offset the peaks and valleys of electrical demand while parked. Imagine a Tesla Cyber truck (the drivetrain, not the cosmetic design) with an onboard 3 cylinder turbo diesel range extender that could put out enough power for it to run 80mph for 1000 miles on a small tank of fuel and tow anything a 2500 could. That’s be pretty cool.
 
Power is out, again...... Just kinda wierd for it to start becoming normal to crank up the generator a couple times every 24hrs for 4-6hrs at a go. Drove through town last night when the electric was down and it was almost creepy. About 90% of our smallish town (12,k ppl) was totally dark. And the only places open were two gas stations.

Went out and helped Dad a bit today(plumbing), shop were I work has been shut down since Friday. Started fixing busted pipes, while we at one person's house, his neighbor saw us and came over. While they were gone to have lunch at family's house, one of the pipes at they're house had burst and flooded the whole house while they were gone. Literally water running down the edge of the slap on the outside walls.