https://x.com/DylanFedericoWX/.../2013663201372549263

A destructive and potentially catastrophic ice storm is forecast to impact the south this weekend. Widespread ice will cripple travel, cause major power outages, and down trees. This is a rare high-impact event — potentially the worst in decades since the Great Ice Storm of February 1994. Computer models are calling for widespread ice accumulations of 1-2+” — for context — a half an inch is considered catastrophic. Residents from Dallas, Shreveport, Atlanta, and Charlotte need to prepare like a hurricane is coming. Buy non-perishable food, water, gas, and charge devices. Protect pipes, plants, pets, and people. It also wouldn’t hurt to trim vulnerable tree limbs close to valuable property. I would have warm clothes in case the power goes out. You can forget about any travel north this weekend. An ice storm of this magnitude will cripple the I-20 corridor along with any flights into this area for days. Ice impacts could even be possible as far south as I-10 in Texas and western Louisiana — but the swath of greatest impacts will likely stay north. Either way, this is trending towards becoming a historic storm, and those in the path should heed warnings from local meteorologists and emergency officials.

Hope they are wrong. If not, hope all of you stay safe and look after one another.
Sounds like it could be similar to the floods in NC in terms of affecting people.

Got all my gas cans filled up tonight just in case we get the typical ice storms and lose power for a few days.

Drove down to the Mississippi Gulf Cost, then to Florida Panhandle, and heading back to Our Kansas Thursday to get home before it gets oogly.

Rather not try for Friday and risk getting caught in any ice and anything that would cause a delay.

I’ve seen enough “pile up” videos to know I don’t want that on my BINGO card…

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:
^^^^^

Going to be colder in DFW, lows maybe 10 degrees. We canceled a dinner get together this Sat, and I'm going to winterize my pool tomorrow, shut it down and drain all pumps, etc.

I’ve owned a pool here for twenty years. At 36 degrees freeze protect on your main pump activates (should be programmed for it) and the goal is to circulate water until temps rise. Same reason you let faucets drip inside the house. I’ve never even heard of someone winterizing a pool here and I know people that work on them for a living locally. If you run a booster for a spa, yeah drain that so your booster pump housing doesn’t crack in freezing temps but your main pool pump should be running in freeze protect mode until it gets back above 36 degrees. It’s not abnormal for the pump to run a few days in a row during freezing temps. Better to have it running actually unless you are going to completely drain your pool and put antifreeze in your pvc supply lines.

I did my grocery shopping earlier tonight because a friend mentioned this yesterday. Thankfully I went today as they have already begun making a run on milk, eggs, TP, paper towels, and bread, for 3 whole days of below freezing temps. 3 whole days. This is just normal business up north and it’s 3 days not a month or weeks on end. I’m not worrying about this. Our weather shows 3 days of low temps for our geographic area, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. 29, 26, and 40 highs for those 3 days and 12, 17, and 8 for lows. February 2021 it was near zero for a whole week and this is just 3 days. I think we’ll live.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
Hope they are wrong. If not, hope all of you stay safe and look after one another.
Sounds like it could be similar to the floods in NC in terms of affecting people.

Hope they are wrong as well.

If the picture in Para’s post turns out to be half true, a whole lot more people will be affected than were in the NC flooding, but the individual impacts shouldn’t be nearly as bad.

In last years ice storm in Northern Michigan, many people were without power for two weeks and some for a month. The power companies were not ready for it and didn’t have nearly enough crews running the first week. By week two, they were getting crews from other parts of the state and stated making real progress getting the power back for people.

Check your manuals, most air cooled whole house generators tell you to check the oil level once every 24 hours and change the oil every 200 hours. Do check and change the oil. I had never seen oil come out like dark honey in 70 degree weather until I changed the oil on a church members generator after Hurricane Ian. Have a jug of oil on hand and expect to do it yourself as the generator service people will be backed up on calls.

Looks like it's going to bypass the Atlanta area.

https://weather.com/storms/win...-mix-south-southeast

Houston area news stations make it seem like everyone is going to die, it makes for good stories to get people scared.

I’m glad I have a whole house generator, as long as the natural gas flows (and that could be a problem), I am good.

MY only real concern is work, being in South Texas nothing is ever designed for freezing weather but I do not think we will be cold long enough to cause issues.

We had a major ice storm in the Seattle area a couple of years ago. They're uncommon here.

I had forgotten about the sound of tree limits breaking under the weight of all the ice. Beautiful dead silence then Boom!

Be safe out there.

I have my tractor filled with diesel and 20 gallons spare.
This runs my generator.
I’ve filled the spare gas cans too(20 gallons)
I have my cable chains ready for the AWD Nissan.
I have a load of firewood too.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:

I’ve owned a pool here for twenty years.

I've lived in my present house going on nine years and have maintained my pool all of this time, and yes, our freeze protection is also set to turn on when temps reach 36 degrees (the lowest setting), and it is helpful except when we lose power. During the 2021 freeze, after three days of sub-freezing temps, power shut off for 22 hours when temps were in the low 20s and got down to less than 10 degrees; we do not have a whole house generator. I immediately went outside in 6-8" of snow and ice to remove the drain plugs in the pool components, which I later learned was only half the procedure. A week later when the ice and snow thawed, I tried to prime and start the pool, but had leaks in one of the valves and surrounding pipes, and one of the pumps (I have three) was spewing water from the bottom which was damaged because not all of the water was drained out of it. My pool company and others were slammed, I could not get an appointment for six months by the time I called. Long story short, I bought a new Polaris pump from my local retail store from a friend who manages it, and repaired the pool myself with industrial epoxy and caulking, which still holds up today. My neighbors did not fare as well- my next door friends did not winterize their pool during the power outage and destroyed their pool equipment, costing 5 figures to replace, same with my neighbor across the street. My neighbor two doors down did far worse- they were away on vacation and did not prepare their house for the cold. Their pipes burst in the attic and their pool system looked like a grenade was dropped on the pool pad because of the power outage. They lived elsewhere for a year while their house was repaired.

I have since learned how to properly winterize my pool setup for cold snaps in North Texas including tenting it to protect it from wind, ice and snow, and many other pool owners have as well; over 10,000 pools were damaged in 2021. It is not the cold by itself, but losing power because of a strained power grid is the issue.

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
Looks like it's going to bypass the Atlanta area.

https://weather.com/storms/win...-mix-south-southeast

Woooooo!!

It's all shifting to Schmelby's house.

'cause he can take it.

https://x.com/StormCat5_/status/2013838358032658784

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
Looks like it's going to bypass the Atlanta area.

https://weather.com/storms/win...-mix-south-southeast

We will see, the forecast today is much different than yesterday. They had it at about 36 hours of rain and snow with temps staying below freezing


1999 we lost power for about 5 days, I lived in Peachtree Corners at the time. I have stocked a few things since that I haven't used, a small gas stove, propane bottles and propane heaters

Just here to help out:



I have a Vevor Tool Box heater which I have used camping and to heat the garage when working in there during cold weather. It is also a winter back up for heating the house when power goes down and IF the generator doesn't work. I have a couple battery power stations to power it (600 watt and 1800 watt).

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:
I have since learned how to properly winterize my pool setup for cold snaps in North Texas including tenting it to protect it from wind, ice and snow, and many other pool owners have as well; over 10,000 pools were damaged in 2021. It is not the cold by itself, but losing power because of a strained power grid is the issue.

I was born here and have lived here for over 50 years. Feb 2021 was a freak occurrence. Never seen anything like it before or since. It’s not some sort of new normal. This upcoming thing is 3 whole days and only the nights are really the problem, and really just the one single night where it’ll be single digits. It’s not abnormal to hit 20’s or teens for a few days during our winters. Forecast changed today for Monday night. Now they’ve updated it and say it’s going to get - on Monday overnight but on other apps it’s not stating nearly that cold. I suspect this is going to go variable all week as they don’t know. It just doesn’t look sustained.

Feb 2021 we saw near zero degree temps sustained for a week. This is 3 days where high temps are 20’s and then 40 on Monday. Yes it will get cold at night but it’s not going to be 2021 all over again. I think people are overreacting locally. This is not going to be sustained over a whole week, instead just a weekend, and not nearly as cold. There are over 800,000 pools here so 10k vs. 800,000 is actually pretty decent math. If my math is correct that works out to 1.25%. I drain my booster pump prior to winter every year and prime it only if I’m going to use it. Grid wise I’m on the same grid as a data center. Feb 2021 I was kwh down for about 5 hours. If I wasn’t, I would have already installed a generator. We’ve had 5 years since something similar. I think people need to remain calm and not freak out. But they never do that here, ever. They absolutely nuke the grocery stores like it’s going to be a 30 day shut in blizzard.

Some of the more hysterical weather.folk are predicting two feet of show in the DC area (AKA "the DMV" if you live in the ghetto). It'll probably be the usual 4" or so before the storm blows out to sea.

I guess we will see.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:
Feb 2021 we saw near zero degree temps sustained for a week.

In Tarrant County that week, it was mostly in the low 20s in the day, and mostly in the low teens at night, with a couple of nights getting into single digits, the whole week was not zero degrees for us.

My neighbors across the street and next door, they are in their late 70s, had technicians shut down their pool systems today, I decided to do it myself tomorrow. My pool company (Claffey) recommended that I do the same especially since I have two cascade falls in the pool area, the overfill mechanism is disabled in winter since it is part of the sprinkler system, and as long as I can break up the ice that might form on the surface, it will be a good idea.

Otherwise, there is no downside to temporarily winterizing my pool, it is a fail safe in case power goes out for a period of time. I have been burned once, I don't intend to make that mistake again. Better safe than sorry.

Oh, no! Another storm of the century.