I was thinking about this the other day, every home I’ve ever had in a cold place has the all the sinks backed up to interior walls where every home in a warm place has at the very least the kitchen sink invariably backs up to the exterior wall.
The coldest I’ve ever been inside a house was in my childhood home in Houston which was exposed on three sides. It would be Houston cold, you know, 30 or so, and I would freeze my ass off in there. Of course I can’t imagine my parents set the thermostat at anything above about 50.
A warm layer between 800 and 600mb (roughly 5k to 9k feet above the surface. Precip starts as snow then melts in that warm layer then refreezes as sleet pellets as it falls through the cold near the surface or splashes down and freezes on the ground as freezing rain.
Das/David, I love reading your weather knowledge- reminds me of the meteorology class I had to take in flight school that I found riveting and fascinating. You, obviously know wayyyyy more about meteorology/weather than I do, but I do have a very solid working knowledge of it that I hope to hone better.
We work with weather forecasting tools at work each and every flight, and it’s an enormous part of the airline bidness- we are constantly looking at what Mother Nature will do to us, and I can tell you, she has slapped me upside my head so many times in my flying career. She ultimately has the final say.
We humans have been trying to predict the weather since Jesus rode dinosaurs, and we’re still trying to figure it out, but I value and appreciate the technology and knowledge we now have. I am in awe of the power and force that Mother Nature holds and wields, and I respect her tremendously having been on the receiving end numerous times of her capabilities. It truly reminds of my place in the universe.
I will say, as much as I abhor and loathe the cold, and it is fucking cold here in Austin, I spent time outside last night with my dog in this winter storm. I lit my chiminea, poured some of my brother’s Fine Disregard ‘23 Carignane, and actually enjoyed the winter mix that pissed down, the snow pellets, ice, snow and freezing rain. My pilot brain was wondering (without looking at the airport weather reports) what was coming down and how accurate my thinking might be- it’s the weather nerd in me. I will say, my dog absolutely lovvvvved this storm, because Golden Retrievers were meant for cold.
Anyway, I’ll still take 100° weather any day over the cold, but I sure am in awe and appreciative of a good winter storm and what it brings to the cycles of nature.
Hope we can meet up sometime in person to talk weather.
Be good, amigo.
Back in the early 80s in Oklahoma I was a lineman for Southwestern Bell and I used to have to work outside up on phone poles in the cold. I remember a blizzard in Oklahoma that was worse than anything I experienced in St. Louis. It stayed in the teens or lower all week and the wind never stopped blowing. There were snow drifts piled high on many of the streets and the only people that were getting out in it were linemen, road crews and first responders. We linemen referred to ourselves as pre-responders because we facilitated the first responders by keeping the communications line intact. The road crews in Oklahoma don’t have snow plows, instead they use road graders, which are adequate but much slower and far less maneuverable. They were unable to keep up with the surface streets and focused on overpasses and bridges.
Anyway, one of the days during the storm, I was driving my company truck on icy slick Memorial drive and somehow got stuck between two 4 foot snow drifts about a 1/10 of a mile apart. They were 15 to 20 feet front to back to too. I waited for a while and realized no one was coming for me. I panicked for a while and then I said fuck it. I backed the truck up to the larger of the two drifts, slowly gave it gas and built up my speed until I hit the smaller drift at about 45 miles per hour and blasted right through it. I was able to continue without further incident but for a brief moment I was really scared the truck would only make it half way though and lose all traction and I be stuck and fucked.
We got I’d guess a few inches of snow here in the Tall City. No one, including me, is going anywhere, so it all seems fine. All the plumbing in my apartment is on shared interior walls, so it should be good. It’s been below freezing since Friday and will get back into the 20s tomorrow. Probably won’t get back above freezing until Wednesday though. It’ll be hard freezes every night for the next week or two, but no more precip. Mrs Hawk says the house in Houston is all good. She got it wrapped up pretty good, and knows how to shut the water off should all hell break loose. Fingers crossed
Growing up in Tampa we didn’t have air conditioning but our house did have a heater. It was one of those cast iron kerosene fired jobs that was in the middle of the house. There was a drum of heating oil on the side of the house and gravity fed to the heater. You had to open a valve and throw a match or lit piece of paper in there to start the fire. We didn’t get a lot of cold, but there were nights when it’d get mighty chilly to those of us who didn’t know better. We also had concrete floors that were cold as ice year round so that didn’t help. We’d beg my dad to light the heater on some nights , and he occasionally obliged, but fuel cost money and it didn’t grow on the orange tree. Just something else that built character.
I’m not the world’s most physical guy. In fact I lean towards being kind of wimpy. Never worked on a shrimp boat or in the oil patch. But that pole work was hard shit. That’s what motivated me to transfer to the Yellow Pages. Still better than being in a manhole, which, other than a few hours once, I managed to avoid the whole working outside part of my career.
Once I worked in Anadarko Oklahoma, putting in phone lines for landmen temporarily living in tents! This was in 1982. There was a lot of oil and gas activity around there at that time. A lot! Anyway there was a big thunderstorm and it flooded the river though town. The Washita River. So we took to calling ourselves the Washita Linemen.
First flakes just starting to fall here in Northwest Vermont. It’s 2°F. Anybody who tells you “it’s too cold to snow“ doesn’t know what they’re talking about 14 to 18 inches on the way and we will never be higher than 5°F today.
