Monday, January 06, 2014

Snowpocalypse Monday Afternoon

     It makes my teeth hurt.  The cold, that is; and it's not so much when I'm out in it (I'm pleased to tell you layering and vigorous physical activity copes okay with ten below, though my boots/socks are marginal at best) as it is when I am back inside, warming up.  Makes my back hurt, too, but that's from shoveling snow.

     The official total is 11.1", an inch short of the 1901 record of a foot and a tenth.  My snow gauge says a little less is piled up:
      Call it 8.5"

     The front walk disagrees:
     That's a foot of snow, easy.

     Here's an example of the real worry: look at those trees!
     I expect more power fluctuations this evening and overnight as the temperature plummets.

     The basement here at Snow Station Roseholme was 42 F at mid-morning.  Running all the (incandescent!) lights, dryer and a small space heater has brought it up to 54 or so, which is a big improvement considering the outside temperature has been falling all day.

     There's a big bowl of home-made soup waiting for me -- broth and veggies from last night's dinner plus a can of Amy's French Vegetable, a sliced and browned Surry sausage and a couple of slices of corned beef brisket cut up small.  The smell is driving the cats wild and I'm not far behind them.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kilopascals, Roberta? I think you want centimetres which are a measure of distance. Kilopascals are a unit of barometric pressure - 100 kPa is 'standard' atmospheric pressure equivalent to 29.92inHg or 14.7PSI.

Al_in_Ottawa

Keads said...

Stay warm!

Roberta X said...

Al: this much snow puts me under a lot of pressure, though. ;) Plus, people either recognize those are centimeters marching up the left-hand scale or they darned well should. (Kind of gives it away that they're running two and a half to the inch, don't you think?)

kPa, like psi, is a measure of the pressure of anything pressurizable. Like Chinese-made bike tires, which makes me have to go look up the conversion factor.

Keads: I'm trying. Turn on a light bulb to the memory of Edison and Tesla for me, please.

DOuglas2 said...

An electric clothes dryer is an excellent space heater if the exhaust duct can be rerouted to keep the hot air indoors. Not so good if it is attempting to dry clothes at the same time, as the moisture load of that air can be quite high.

And not to be done with gas appliances for obvious reasons.

jdunmyer said...

The weather people are about wetting themselves, the awful weather that they forecast actually came to be! It's horrible here, huge drifts and over a foot of snow otherwise. It's supposed to be very cold tomorrow, and it's already at -13. Am hoping to be able to plow out the drive on Wednesday, if the old forklift will start. (an old plastic pallet on the forks, and that's my "plow")

Roberta X said...

You'll have to tell us how it works out, Jim! --Depends on tire size and vehicle weight, I'd think.

DOuglas2: I've been doing that, too. The humidity is so low that I can run the last twenty minutes or so of clothes drying with the warm air venting into the basement and the vent capped.

jdunmyer said...

Roberta,
Here's a pic of the forklift: http://www.oldengine.org/members/jdunmyer/sawmill/mar27_28.jpg

The plastic pallet is my "snow blade", all I can do is push the snow until it piles up, then swing it to the side of the drive. I have plenty of room to push it around. As inefficient as it sounds, I can clear the 300' drive in under an hour most of the time. Biggest concern is if it'll start because of the cold.