Abuse Of The Elderly Over The Holidays

[keithb7]

 

By the Christmas holidays our daily drivers are due for some type of  scheduled maintenance.  So we must shuffle cars around in the garage to make room for oil changes etc on our daily cars. Its too cold and snowy to work outside. Therefore my ‘38 Plymouth gets flashed up and sent outside.  Typically for a few days is all.  She fired right up. I ran her for 30 mins and got the oil good and hot.  Then I shut her down. It warmed up to only -20c this morning. So  its not too bad. It was -33C yesterday.  Hopefully she’ll fire up tomorrow. Lol. My sons are home for Christmas so we can always push her back into the garage. Antifreeze is good! Its the oil viscosity that will likely thwart any starting attempts tomorrow. 

[Sniper]

0w30 baby, lol

 

it's -10C here, danged cold for this area

[plymouthcranbrook]

 We are up to a balmy -2 degrees F.  That said, we missed the big snow that was promised. And by next week, 57 degrees F. Spring!

[Marcel Backs]

been on generator since 6am here. No sign of blizzard letting up. Hoping hydro failure rectified by tomorrow morning or turkey is going on the charcoal BBQ. Xmas dinner will be interesting this year! LOL! 

[MarcDeSoto]

I'm in Temecula, So. Calif. It's 82 deg. on Christmas, but it gets down to about 42 at night, so I'm feeling the cold too!  

[MarcDeSoto]

11 hours ago, Sniper said:

0w30 baby, lol

 

it's -10C here, danged cold for this area

So would that be 14 deg. F.?  Yes that is cold for west Texas!  

[Plymouthy Adams]

Marcel, I do so hope your power is restored and you are able to get your Christmas back on schedule.   So many folks in my area are not at all prepared for this cold snap.  The average household having zero contingency plans whatsoever especially in regard to heating their homes even if but one room.   In my buzzing around I just recalled an item I did not account for at first, but my backup plan is now in place and effective.  It is now 20* for the past 7 hours...is to be about 15 come morning.  Unseasonably cold for sure...wind chill was brutal this entire day....winds settled a bit for now.  This stuff builds character.....lol

 

Stay warm folks.....I decided to put my pie baking off till morning so when I power up the big oven, I will also be assisting the rise of yeast rolls.  

[squirebill]

7*F here this morning.  Reminds me as a kid there was a gentleman in the neighborhood who had a late 40s Pontiac with a flathead straight 8 in it.  On winter days before he started his car he would light off some BBQ charcoal in a lid of a metal trash can and slide it under the oil pan of the car.  Go in the house for a while and then start the car.  Even as a kid, never seemed very safe to me.  Primitive pre-heater.  Necessity is the mother of invention.  Regards to all.  Merry Christmas.

[Plymouthy Adams]

6 degrees this morning.....two myths busted ...one, maybe I am not living in the south after all and second, the globe is not warming...!  Shop temps was 33 degree...there will be no thoughts of playing outside for me today or likely the next few days this artic blast will linger.  Firewood is disappearing at an accelerated rate but so far....we staying warm and for that I am thankful.

[Los_Control]

Seems the worst of the cold weather is over for West Texas.

It did move in fast, even though we knew it was coming. I was watching YT vids yesterday morning watching the weather. It was 35F .... I knew I would need to run the outside hose bib when it got colder to prevent frozen pipes. 45 minutes later it was 16F & the hose bib was already froze.

 

Just saying, even though was expecting it, happened so fast I still had to use the propane torch to thaw it out.

19F this morning, should warm up to 39 later & 54 tomorrow.

 

Hoping I did not make a major boo boo on my truck. It has some straight water in it. Very little I hope.

Last spring I installed the original radiator thinking I might be able to use it, filled it with water then. ...... There were so many leaks in it I did nothing with it.

So the radiator is empty, I started the truck & moved it around a dozen times over the summer, never adding water. ... I'm betting the block has a little bit of water in it, but not much.

I will be checking it over good next week  

 

[Plymouthy Adams]

I have one car with little if any anitfreeze mix....It is indoors...it has a 100w light under the hood and a small ceramic block heater in place also....like you, I knew the cold was coming but was busy with so many other things this almost slipped my mind.  It is due for a total coolant flush why it did not get new antifreeze.   Last winter I think my coldest temp in the garage was 43 or so.  

[Sniper]

46 minutes ago, Los_Control said:

Seems the worst of the cold weather is over for West Texas.

 

I was NE of DFW when the cold front movved in, drove home as it was rolling in, talk about wind, was a stressful drive as the long bed, crew cab 2500 I was driving was catching the wind from all over the place.  Real chore to keep in my lane.  But I got here.

[Kilgore47]

9 degrees F here in East Texas yesterday morning.  There is a large ice ball at one of the hose bibs now from the drip.  Back to the 70's next week and all will be good again.  

I'm sure I'll reminded about this cold when the utility bills get here.  

[LazyK]

When the storm move thru here on Wednesday the temperature was 42 at 2:30pm, one hour later the temperature was 0. A new record, for this area, for rapid temperature change. Thursday morning the low was -27 and a wind chill of -55. Thursdays high was -4. 40 for a high forecast for today

Edited December 24, 2022 by LazyK

[motoMark]

Been living in a blizzard for the last 2 days here in Buffalo and getting tired of it. It's not supposed to let until tomorrow. And with the driving bans in place and no sign of a snow plow yet, there will be no Christmas gathering tomorrow. 

[JerseyHarold]

I'm a UB graduate and remember the huge mountain of snow dumped by the City on the Grover Cleveland golf course at Main & Bailey.  It would linger until May most years. 

[Eneto-55]

14 hours ago, JerseyHarold said:

I'm a UB graduate and remember the huge mountain of snow dumped by the City on the Grover Cleveland golf course at Main & Bailey.  It would linger until May most years. 

I never saw the pile of snow - don't know where they dumped it, but after one of the big snow winters I spent west of the Twin Cities, I heard that the place where they hauled the snow from down-town Minneapolis still had some unmelted snow left there at the start of the following winter.  (I was there the winters of 75 through Dec of 78, when I moved back to Oklahoma, where I belonged.)

[oldodge41]

Friday started at 34F and quickly dropped below 0. It was -11F here most of Friday and yesterday with 20mph sustained winds and gusts to 55mph. It is a balmy +11F with much calmer winds today.  Merry Christmas everyone, stay warm.

[SteveR]

17 hours ago, Eneto-55 said:

from down-town Minneapolis still had some unmelted snow left there at the start of the following winter.

Ahh, my hometown. We do not get snow here in England, at least not where I live. I miss it sooo much!

I remember that year it was as bad as in 65. When my wife came to Minneapolis MN from England in 1991 we had 27" of snowfall on October 31. They were ill equipped with warm weather gear and had to hibernate for a few days before they could get out to get some.

[SteveR]

On 12/23/2022 at 6:31 PM, keithb7 said:

Therefore my ‘38 Plymouth gets flashed up and sent outside.

She's looking very shinny. Did she get a wax job for Christmas?

[Eneto-55]

5 hours ago, SteveR said:

Ahh, my hometown. We do not get snow here in England, at least not where I live. I miss it sooo much!

I remember that year it was as bad as in 65. When my wife came to Minneapolis MN from England in 1991 we had 27" of snowfall on October 31. They were ill equipped with warm weather gear and had to hibernate for a few days before they could get out to get some.

What year was that?

[SteveR]

5 minutes ago, Eneto-55 said:

What year was that?

When my wife came over?

[Dan Hiebert]

It's normal here in northern Maine, albeit a little on the warm side, despite that storm.  We got up to 48 Friday evening, then within an hour we were in the teens - almost like flicking a switch - when midnight rolled around.  About the same time the power went out "for good".  It had flickered off and on once the winds hit but went out for the night just before midnight.  Our house and shop are well insulated, and we have alternative heat, so no real issues.  Just a tad annoying if you're trying to get stuff done.  But we're used to it, Maine has among the worst power outage records in the Nation.  How they measure that, I'm not sure, but it has something to do with number of outages and time from outage to restoration.  It's entertaining to poke fun at you'uns down south who aren't used to this stuff, but I'll leave it at that and wish you all a speedy recovery back to "normal"...or thereabouts.  Oh, yeah, to keep this on topic, the ol' D24 remains tucked away for the winter with her sisters and cousin in that heated and well insulated shop.  I seal the overhead door up for the winter once it gets consistently below freezing and do any modern vehicle maintenance in the heated garage under the house.  

[Plymouthy Adams]

Snow, sleet and ice storms are not new to me...just not common to where I now live...lol  Am I used to less severe winters, yes and I will admit I miss nothing at all of the great frozen north this time of year....it is great place to summer.....!!!  My house is well insulated NOW and the shop is equally insulated.  Even at 6 degrees outside, I stayed above freezing in the unheated attached shop.    We predicted to be into the 40's today, barely and brief that will be.   I have 32 cars indoors....so can't complain much.  

[Eneto-55]

4 hours ago, SteveR said:

When my wife came over?

I guess so.  I thought you were saying that she came the same year as when the Minneapolis city's snow pile never completely melted.  (If it was the same as when I'm thinking of, it was between the winter of 75-76 and probably 77-78.  I was just there half of the school year in the winter of 78-79 - moved home to Oklahoma in December 78.)