Every time we get below freezing down here in the south, we act like it's a tragic hardship. But for me, it just humbles me for those north of me where it's a daily way of life for a good chunk of the year. When working with or on heavy iron with this weather, it's more dangerous, everything seems heavier and bolts, pins are more stubborn to remove, engines are harder to start, batteries suck, and my own body hurts more every year. Geez- I'm such a southern boy. My hat's off to you who thrive in the white stuff...
Not enjoying your free, Arctic blast subscription, I see.
We live in the mountains of Va at 2600' so we're about halfway in between climate wise. This type of weather is not abnormal for our area, but it seems like we went several years with very mild winters. However, the last couple have been about what I'd call normal, maybe a little light on the snow. I've seen 27" of snow in one storm before and temps as low as -12F. Well before my time but the winter of 1960 they had more than 48" of snow on the ground. I have tire chains for all the essential equipment, two generators, and three days worth of wood in the basement for the wood furnace with another 6 cords at the ready. It doesn't matter where you live or how well prepared you are, this type of weather always means extra work. I do feel bad for people way down south that don't have homes built for this type of weather, backup heat sources, good snow removal equipment, etc. There are a lot of new homes being built that are all electric, no backup heat sources and no generator, that would scare me.
They overestimated our snow my double. Forecast was 12-16”. We got 6 at the house. It is darn cold here though which is unusual. Honestly the toughest thing thus far is keeping the humidity up in the house. Fireplace insert keeps the main living area very comfortable, welding machine is in the back of the truck if they missed the snow and it was ice. I agree, most houses around here aren’t built for this at all. I’ll never own one that doesn’t have multiple ways to stay warm.
As long as I don't have to work in it, I'm good. I don't mind enjoying it once in a while but it's too much when it becomes a daily life. That's why I'm humbled by those that thrive in it. I lived through the Texas power outage in 2021 for 3 days without utility power or water. Wife was wigging out a bit because we had a 2 year old and a 6 month old in the house. No problem, I had a lot of wood stockpiled for the fireplace and I back-fed the house with a generator so we could run the natural gas furnaces. I enjoyed 'roughing' it for a few days...if you think roughing it means sleeping in your own bed and just having to bucket flush the toilet. Like said above, some of the new 'modern' all electric homes are not very comfy when the power goes out...
It's been close to 20 years, but the winter of 2008 was as cold as I can ever recall. We had -20F for about 40 days straight, 8 straight days of -30F, and the coldest night was -45F. That type of cold makes 10F feel like the tropics, no joke.
Where does the sewer go? Here, if the power is out, we have to set a 50kW diesel up to power the lift stations, and it has to be moved between 2 different ones. The city should set up a permanent one on the main station, but we used the grant a few years ago to install one for the main pump house, mostly for fire protection as we fill our tower from a 500k ground storage tank.
At that time, we were on the City of Austin utility system for electricity and water. Natural gas was a separate utility. When the ice storm was knocking down power lines across the state, city of Austin started cutting blocks of the grid to conserve power since there wasn't enough reserve to go around. They prioritized keeping power to blocks with hospitals, sewer, and a couple other critical services but we weren't in one of those blocks. The crazy funny thing about it was our next door neighbor, literally 20ft from our house, kept their power the entire time. Turns out they were on a different 'grid block' which had a major hospital in it even though we were in the same neighborhood. The water being cutoff was a different story. When pipes froze across the city and started leaking (we're talking the major supply lines to large buildings, etc.), the city started losing too much pressure to maintain safe sanitation methods and decided to cut supply. So yeah, 3 days of melting snow and ice in the crawfish pot for flushing water was a nuisance, not a disaster....like the busted pipe we had in the kitchen on day one. Starting off the 3 day adventure with a flooded kitchen was kind of a disaster and definitely added to the wife's wigging. That's why you see the rug hung up in the back of the pic.
Melting snow in the crawfish pot. That’s just something that’s rarely mentioned.
I’ve been through two other really bad weather situations in the 33 years we’ve been here. 07 I had just bought a new house in the fall, spent weeks trimming cleaning up the mature trees. Ice storm came and took a bunch down. We had no power for a week. My aunt lived in tulsa, oldest house of all the family, and she had power. A small 3 bed, 2 bath maybe 1700 sq ft. There were 10 of us in there for a week. Back in 21 we had a really bad cold snap for a couple weeks, zero or below, most everybody I knew had no power and some didn’t even gas for heat. We had bought that house a few months before and we made it the entire time without a hiccup. I ended up off work an entire month. In that time I finished my entire garage, did my taxes and all kinds of little projects lol.
That storm is supposed to hit us late today. Down to 4 inches. Ill be glad as it always warms up to snow
Back when trailer trucking CF had a terminal in Charlotte NC just off I-77. Freak cold front combined with some tropical moisture from down south left about 6" of snow on the road, No plows, DOT had a couple of guys in the back of a truck shoveling sand on the bridges. Dispatcher says "you guys are from Buffalo, snow shouldn't be a problem this hot freight needs to go north now" Yeah right. It was funny to see all those boats on Lake Norman with 6" of snow on 'em.
Watching the news this morning looks like parts of Tennessee got clobbered with ice. Up to an inch thick. Similar to what crushed us back in 2021. That sucks- hope they fair better than us. Here's a few pics of our roads in 2021. Ice was also about an inch thick. I could only imagine the weight it added to limbs, power lines, etc. It's not the cold that generally hurts us southern folks, it's the ice.
Yesterday, in 10 hours, we had 1.78" of freezing rain here in TN. All of that fell on 2" of fresh snow. Then, we just received another inch of dry snow on top of all of the ice. We have already met the forecasted high today of 17F. It will drop below zero tonight. The next few days are going to be rough. I am staying at home, where I got heat, food, internet and no apartment dweller cowboys in FWD trucks thinking they are invincible.
For those not used to the cold weather....Keep telling yourself (as you slog thru it all) "What doesn't Kill you, makes you stronger"......
That Southern Ice is the worst.
Cripes....put the hubs in, and run up that hill on the median, you can see a path thru there.....
They do have fire, there's something to worry about.
Wife and drove back from Biloxi, MS today after spending a weekend on the Gulf of America. No snow or ice on I-59 or I-20 from Meridian, MS all the way home. We stayed right below the freeze line. Normally 20/59 from Meridian to Birmingham is packed with traffic probably 60/40 18 wheelers/4 wheelers. Today it was eerily void of truck traffic. Must be really messed up on 20 farther west. Passed a few trucks with ice/snow all over them and even had to dodge hunks of that frozen stuff on the interstate that had fallen off. Glad to be home.
That just brought back some old memories. In 1996, I was stationed at Ft Rucker which is in the south-eastern corner of Alabama, about 30 miles north of IH-10 in the Florida panhandle. Right as we were getting ready to take our standard 2 weeks off for Christmas/New Years break, a big cold front like this one came down and laid down an obligatory 4-6" of snow with a smattering of ice here/there, just to try and stop us from getting home for the holidays. I, and a handful of fellow Texan classmates stationed with me, jumped in my Bronco and headed west on IH10. Like CM1995 said, it was odd that the freeways were empty and the biggest hazard was dodging the random chunks of ice that fell off the semi's. It was even more odd that we saw snow on IH10 in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and into Texas. It wasn't much snow but enough to make the smart ones to stay off the highways...unlike us knuckleheads.
Ahh Mother Rucker.. Had a friend of mine that went to flight school there. That storm hit AL pretty hard. 3' of snow in Birmingham.
Mother Rucker. Only Army aviation folks and Alabama locals know 'Mother Rucker'. I didn't realize that storm was that bad to drop that much snow up in the northside. I'm sure that put a damper on folks going to Circle K for a pack of smokes for a bit...
I worked in Norman Wells for a month one winter and got talking with the girl the drove the crummy. She said that they didn't close the schools down until the temp dropped to -52 and they had to walk to school.
Uphill both ways no doubt.
I feel funny driving the Crosstrek, but I tell you what, with a fresh set of Bridgestone Blizzaks, these Subarus stick to the road under any circumstance. Even Southern Ice. I have no doubt about it getting me to any pride festival.
Based on some of your most recent posts (I haven't been here long) I am digging your sense of humor. It reminds me of how I get around my not so sensitive service friends.
Don't believe it ad Subaru is a lesbian car
I thought it was a good thing, in this case at least. Road is getting de-iced, stranded people are getting warmed up. Win-Win.....
Subaru.....It's the number one car as voted on by hairdressers and carpet XXXXXX all over America. You guys in the deep south have more snow on the roads than we do up here right now. This has been the easiest Winter in a lifetime up here.
We are getting slammed this afternoon. AST says there are 100 stuck or wrecked vehicles between ANC and Eagle River on the Glenn Highway and it’s closed outbound. The Seward Highway is closed between ANC and Girdwood. The weather isn’t that bad. It’s because the AK DOT & PF have no equip operators or mechanics. Everything is broken, can’t get parts and nobody wants to plow snow. Look at the openings,…. Job Openings - LIUNA Public Employees Local 71 Title Jobs - All Open Positions local71.com
Bosses son is like 19 or 20. I was at the shop fueling up. Went out at 3am on a saturday. Im ready to go home. Hes sitting back. Shades on tunes cranked, and starts plowing the shop yard. His father comes in from plowing. Thanks me for coming in. Looks at him going. Says to me. Do you remember when plowing was still fun, and you would stay on a Saturday to plow the shop? He says he can stay. Im going the f home
It is like running equipment, you can't wait til you get to play on a machine then it goes from fun to work and getting beat to **** all day, well not all day, you what I mean but I still never want to be the shovel guy full time again
The weather north of jackson ms had a lot of freezing precipitation breaking many branches of trees including taking down many power lines and poles. The weather is much better but it SUCKS not having power or water since Sunday morning at 0300 and probably will not have power until Friday if then. Running a generator and have water stored. Got my first shower tonight at a friends house, last shower was Saturday night. Makes me appreciate the luxuries we have in this life.
I have seen more cars spin out in front of me in the last 10 days than I've ever seen in my life do it. I've just been driving locally, but it seems half the people forgot to SLOW DOWN in the winter. Had a gal yesterday try to pass me while I slowed down for the truck in front of me to make a left turn. She came to a skidding halt beside me, screaming and slamming her steering wheel. Then got back behind me and tailgated me like I was towing her all the way to the farms driveway. Later, I went to NAPA to order a replacement block heater cord. Before I walked in to NAPA, I heard sirens going off from the Police and Fire Department across the street. I leave there to find the intersection I had just driven through closed with a bad T-bone wreck. Driver slid straight through the stop sign. Visibility was pretty crappy yesterday. High winds with fluffy snow caused a lot of drifting and white out conditions. I hauled 2 loads of cattle to the sale barn and the usualy 40 minute trip was about 70 minutes yesterday. I'm ready for March and warmer weather.
I plow a small apartment on my route. It's pretty much a converted house so only 3 apartments. I plow a Dairy Queen across the street, so they know they will be next . There is what I assume is a Nigerian couple and a guy from India or Pakistan. The Nigerian comes out dressed as if he is going on a polar expedition. Other guy not so much but heavily dressed. They move, I clean their spots, then a local girl probably in her 20s come out in shorts t shirt and slippers
Coaldust talking about the Subaru rings true with us too. On that first day of that 2021 Texas storm, I had to head to the hardware store to grab a few parts to plug the frozen pipe we had so I could turn the water back on. No problem- I have (at that time) my 2001 F350 Powerstroke Crew Cab 4x4 with upsized Cooper All Terrains and Ranch Hand replacements, front and back. I get on the road, going slow to be safe but still sloshing all over the place in a 9k tare truck, and all the little compact SUVs with AWD are zipping by me like it's nothing. Anyway, I get my parts and head home. About 1/4 mile from the house, my trucks dies and fails to start. I'm guessing ice crystals clogged up something (cause I never needed fuel additive ever before!) so I trudge home with parts in hand. Afterwards I used my wife's Volvo XC90 with the 2.0L to do the driving....man what a difference it made...even without snow tires! I felt like a go cart on the road passing up all the apartment cowboys in their jacked up 4x4's sloshing sideways! I got respect for the light AWD vs heavy 4x4...
Heard on the radio that Oxford was hit hard with ice and the damage may change what Ol Miss's campus looks like.
Awd was developed for racing. My sister has a Subaru and it seems to have mountain goat footing
For driving in snow and ice, I will take my wife’s AWD Chevy Equinox over my truck any day. That is unless the snow is over 8” on the road, for that I will take my tall tires and lifted truck, any day. It kills me when I see people trying to make it up the hill by my driveway, with summer tires on, half bald and wondering why their FWD car won’t make it up the hill.
We live in a snowbelt (that said virtually no snow this winter at all!). No snow on ground here currently, driveway down to frozen dirt/gravel. First time in 28 years on this hill... The road up to our acreage has 3 sharp switchbacks, steep grades the whole way in. My wife's 2003 Rav4, which she has had for years now, with Blizzaks or equivalent is by far the best for compact snow/ice/or worst---water layer/rain on frozen compact snow/ice.... The heavy dually only rolls when just snow. Getting the other (heavy) trucks up our driveway in winter requires chains....whereas the Rav will just scoot right up lol! But, will use the pickup if heavy snow/slush on highway. A lot safer as the weight (with narrow pizza cutters) doesn't get pulled around like a lighter unit will. Heavy versus light...a lot of nuances which are really dependent on temperatures and the type of snow/ice...Biggest problem is people need to slow down.
No idea what everyone ate yesterday morning, but this photo is crazy. Something like 50+ in the ditch in under 40 miles of road. We've had snow for ~4 months now, not like it's the 1st storm and people still running balonie skin tires. I'm not too nervous driving if it's just me on the road... it's the idiots I worry about! If they enforced traffic laws and we had to take a non pencil whipped driving test every 5 years, I bet it'd reduce much of it. Had one crash into me in a grader a few years ago. In the well lit, 5mph loading area at the airport. I was stopped to let walkers cross. Hit hard enough it popped her airbags. I barely felt it. "Didn't see me". Uh... a big yellow 15 ton machine with blue and yellow strobes is hard to miss! If I hadn't been there, probably would have ran over people!
I tried those tires... "Ballsacks" as my Dad calls them on a WRX. They were ok, but studded tires were better.
The ballsacks are 1/3 the cost of a new set of Hakkapeliittas w/carbides. My 2.0 and CVT can’t spin the tires on wet ice. I’m not ice racing a WRX. I’m just trying to get to Valley Country to do my laundry and grab a bottle.
I just had to put new skags on one of the sleds last week and I splurged on carbide.
Looks like you have too many new folks up there in Alaska. But then we have way to many southerners moving up here into northern WI too. They are either flying up to an icy intersection hoping to take down a stoplight, or doing 27 on a mostly clear road compaining about the obnoxious plow guys passing them (Me ) . . .
Speaking of tires, the local fire dept and EMS use Autosocks. I snapped a couple pics when they came down our street to answer a call this weekend. I've never heard of them but they said they work great and they keep sets in the trucks for the random ice storms we get here. Easy to slip on and off. I googled them and there's a handful of similar products. Curious to what you icy-beard folks say 'bout them.
Fire department here uses a cylinder with a spinning set of chains
Onspot ? Home | Onspot automatic tire chains Onspot is easy to use and reliable. On icy and slippery roads, the automatic tire chains are activated by the driver – from a dashboard switch. For emergency vehicles, public transport or commercial vehicles Onspot is a smart insurance to help you arrive safely and on schedule. www.onspot.com
Looks like it
You can hear them jingle all summer long as well....retracted up they still jingle.
Wrx was just a cummuter car. I run studded tires on the TDI Jetta. Does pretty dang good even though it's low.
It have studs on the "sock"? We mostly use studded or v bar chains here. Had a flatlander tell me they were skidder chains once. The "chains" he had looked like something for a little car, not a truck.
I had an incident once where I would have liked to have them. I was hauling dump trailer to a remote site. The road was plowed but snow packed. I put her in full lock and was just about to Crest the hill and she started hopping. I backed down sitting myself that it might start sliding. I lost my run, it was a dip, so I couldn't back up the other side. I tried 3 more times. Last try she started sliding back. I ended up dumping on the road. It was in the middle of the woods so no traffic. Our tandems were hauling so as soon as 2 were empty. They walked the loader out and reloaded on them
Nope, literally just a sock. It keeps the rubber off the ice. The rubber has good grip on the cloth and the cloth has good grip on the ice. You can google them and find all kinds of info and reviews. Seems to be something simple to keep behind the back seat if needed. Maybe Cuttin Edge wouldn't have had to leave a dump in the middle of the road with these
Kind of looks like a "As seen on TV" sort of gimmick to keep in case you have a snowstorm in the next decade . . .
How do you wash your hands in a freezing non heated shop with it so many deg below freezing? Driving in snow? Cheapest insurance is don't. And if you do wait 2 days before going out into it. Then all the non adept snow drivers are off the road, till their cars either get fixed or towed. Oh don't forget the long johns.
Ok. Which one of you, is filling my alcohol evaporators with raspberry blue koolaid? It’s making my junk freeze up. Stop it.
Unheated shop? What's that? If you wait two days after it snows to drive you are gonna be shut in for three months . . .
We don’t get snowed out, we get snowed on.
WWF?
I know, right? lol. Someone has been filling your alcohol evaporators with windshield wiper fluid. Lol. It’s not as bad as I imagined, but it’s freezing up the brake interlocks on the tanker load heads and an occasional ABS modulator.
I mean the good stuff is mostly methanol, but that's probably only -20* stuff. Not to mention leaving smurf pee stains in snow would get me shut down pretty darn quick!
Which is only 5% alcohol IIRC the rest is water....and Bloo dye.....
IceHole and myself used to manufacture washer fluid and sell it, back in the good old days when we were in the methanol biz. It was the best stuff around.
At one time the surplus store "BigLots" had washer fluid on sale....I bought a gallon.... Hit the washer button, instantly fumes came in the defroster, must have been 100% everclear. Went back and bought some more.
They are garbage Never seen them in real life. Highway thru hell showed drivers trying to use them on the Coca-Cola or Coquihalla highway and the drivers ended up putting them back on their head.
Onspot Automatic chains--The chain heads are to be removed in off season no one does it. The constant vibration plus non rotation ruins the bearing in chain heads. Auto chains are not to be deployed above 25 mph, it will rip the chain heads to pieces. Once chain heads start freezing up/not rotating at same speed as tire that it's running on, it will/can cut a 1.5" wide grove in tire sidewall right down to steel. A set installed on tandem around $4,500. Plus there are a few grease fittings no one greases, once installed those become a major hindrance for any other work needing to be done. The replacement chain links are expensive I had 65 tractors equipped with auto chains to take care of.
The school buses here have auto chains, I guess in that application they are pretty indispensable. The road we live on has a very steep grade with the bus stop at the top. Asked my wife yesterday how did the kids at her school get there….needed 4 wheel on pickup to make it. Then remembered they had those auto chains. She saw the bus climb the hill in heavy slush & ice!
Just bought an old EX100, waiting for the truck now (rollback tandem). I have no doubt we will have to chain up to get this ‘antique’ home! The road contractor here hails from Spain! They don’t like to plow much; Rather wait it out until the snow melts.
What color did you put in it ? MD Florescent green ?
Chromatech D95019 Chromatint® Blue 2819 Liquid. I just walked past the drum. They advertise it as non-staining, but that’s not true. Wash your hands before taking a leak.
It was all blue back in the day, should have used a different color for "marketing" make 25% more profit that way. How about that weird orange/green mercurchrome color ?
It was all bulk product for the big fleets. Ok, here is my secret, foolproof, washer fluid business plan. Corporate shot me down. Remember when TPB was popular and Ray was drilling trucker bombs all over the trailer park? I wanted to dye is straw yellow to make it look like a 1 gallon, smelly whisky ****. Brand it, “ Uncle Rays” secret formula. It would sell like crazy. Good for 40 below. I even looked at plastic bottle machines and small scale bottle fillers. Seriously, I am shocked that nobody bottles it locally. That stuff is heavy to ship and takes up space. But, it’s still more economical to ship bottles all the way here. The days of cheap meth are over. .
Ray was a lawyer in real life
We have to dye some fluids for a couple customers. I hate dealing with that stuff. I swear just looking at it gets it all over.
The environmental folks make it $$$. I tried to get a cheap pressure washer for blasting mud off the trucks. The one we had was officially NOSI's so it went to you know who. Environmental kicked out about 50 pages if requirements to include a waste water permit of like $10k a year, drain planning, etc, etc. Like we were starting an industrial washing company degreasing heavy equipment parts. To wash mud like 7-8x a year, maybe on 2 trucks. All about not being careless with pollution, but there's a limit too! Oh and of course when the higher ups visit... "why are the trucks dirty"... not like everyday is dust or mud or anything....
What does Delta Leasing charge to wash trucks, now?