How's The Weather Out There...

[sheepherder]

It was clear and sunny today. -4ºF when I got up, got to a high of 12º. When it hit 8º around 11:30, I used my Cadet Cub tractor-tread sno-blower to clear out my driveway and the mailbox access, which the state plows buried.

Weather Channel has bunches of stories of the mid-South states getting hit by Octavia. Some interesting equipment which I have never seen, like a 90ft tanker with spray-nozzles pointing straight down to spray anti-icing agent on the roads. The newscaster was talking about the Arkansas people 'pre treating' the roads with a salt solution prior to any precipitation...Never seen anything like that up here in snow country...

Looks like Tennessee is getting hit now...8inches of snow predicted for Wash DC...Haha...You think John's stretch Mercedes limo will get stuck???

[rolandtg]

I shouldn't have commented! Yesterday it was ~70°. Today it's ~35°!!
The temperature dropped almost 25° this morning.

Texas weather.....

[Sergio Natali]

I've just come back from Rome where we have been for a few days, and we had a mix of sunnish days with greysh ones, beautiful light for taking pictures, thank God no rain at all.
Here in the North at home is a bit colder (about 46 Fahrenheit) and a pale sun.
I'm already waiting for Spring!

Sergio

[MikeP]

Up to +12 here, couple inches snow. Very little of that this year.

[John Sabato]

2 degrees here in Northern Virginia at 5AM this morning... -16 degrees wind chill... but we have had a warming trend since then, the temperature is now 5 degrees at 10:43 AM

it's nice and toasty in the house right at 68 degrees.

[rhuff]

I don't suppose anyone wants to discuss "Global Warming" with the Boston folks, or some of you guys!!

[alvin]

American way of living is very inefficient. Each family got a standalone house, having oil trucks running around... and this building structure is majorly wood, not very strong. Heard there would be raining on Sunday, real disaster would be roof collapsing...

[ithacaartist]

Originally Posted by rhuff

I don't suppose anyone wants to discuss "Global Warming" with the Boston folks, or some of you guys!!

I don't mind discussing it. Lots of folks confuse "weather" with "climate". You'd think that meteorologists would have the proper take on the situation, but many of them are just as deluded in this way as the general public can be. To get the straight scoop, you want to listen to/read what climatologists are saying!

One of the effects of global warming is that weather patterns change and shift around. The famous polar vortex effect may settle in as a regular winter feature as a result. For every locale that has worsening weather trends, I'll bet there are areas where it's actually becoming more pleasant!

Originally Posted by alvin

American way of living is very inefficient. Each family got a standalone house, having oil trucks running around... and this building structure is majorly wood, not very strong. Heard there would be raining on Sunday, real disaster would be roof collapsing...

Much of the developed world is very inefficient with use of resources. For example, Japan throws away, IIRC, near 40% of its food, most of that for no good reasons at all, just their arbitrary expiration date policies. Americans are almost as bad. Society may trend back to urban dwelling in order to be more efficient in use of fuel, transportation, food, etc., but not, I see it, until it is too cost-prohibitive, aesthetically painful, or logistically impossible to avoid it.

Another thing to consider is that Europeans used up their forests long ago, and what remains is becoming increasingly expensive. As a consequence, the proportion of stone and concrete used in residential construction is much higher in Europe. We Americans, left to human nature alone, will do the same thing unless restrained.

Architectural engineering can properly address all but the most severe/unlikely possibilities presented by snow load, and the roofs that collapse are generally on buildings inappropriately designed for their locale, and buildings that have not been adequately maintained. Otherwise, those concerned will be shoveling roofs! I saw a YouTube of an invention that worked really well for this. It was a 4-sided aluminum box on a pole, with one of those flat plastic sledding mats--the kind that rolls itself up at rest--attached to the rear, bottom edge. When pushed up the roof, the box would chisel/scoop snow as it slid along, and when the blob of snow involved hit the plastic, the latter would unroll under the former's weight and provide a very slippery escape route for the white stuff. Amazingly effective action, much better and faster than dragging it down with a giant hoe on a handle, and way better than climbing up there and doing it old-school with a shovel!

[cirelaw]

Very Impressive! I wish our politicians could read!!

[nukem556]

Why did they change the name of the collectivist/Marxist scare term from "global warming" to "climate change'? Simple...they can't prove any global temperature increase. Accurate thermometers were not even invented until the middle 1800's...hence the doomsayers rely on analyzing fossilized tree trunks and air pockets entrapped in Anarctic ice floes to declare the global average temperature over the next 100 years will increase by a stunning 1.2 degrees F. On any given 10 year cycle, the degree of sunspot/flare activity changes earth temperature more than that.

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by rhuff

I don't suppose anyone wants to discuss "Global Warming" with the Boston folks, or some of you guys!!

IIRC from The Science Channel a few months back, some scientists think we are heading into a 'Mini Ice Age'...It seems they are cyclical, and we're due...

I don't expect to see icebergs in the Hudson, but maybe glaciers in Quebec...

[lew1]

Originally Posted by nukem556

Why did they change the name of the collectivist/Marxist scare term from "global warming" to "climate change'? Simple...they can't prove any global temperature increase. Accurate thermometers were not even invented until the middle 1800's...hence the doomsayers rely on analyzing fossilized tree trunks and air pockets entrapped in Anarctic ice floes to declare the global average temperature over the next 100 years will increase by a stunning 1.2 degrees F. On any given 10 year cycle, the degree of sunspot/flare activity changes earth temperature more than that.

It was changed because it was not getting warmer. But climate change includes everything.

As to why there is such a big deal about it, just figure out who is going to profit from the idea of climate change. As the old saying goes - follow the money.

[Sergio Natali]

Quote...Europeans used up their forests long ago, and what remains is becoming increasingly expensive. As a consequence, the proportion of stone and concrete used in residential construction is much higher in Europe... Unquote

We started around 771 B.C. ...

I'm only joking

Sergio

[Diver6106]

Yah, the Romans depleted the Great Saharan Forrest.

[Sergio Natali]

QUOTE
7,300 to 5,500 years ago: Retreating monsoonal rains initiate desiccation in the Egyptian Sahara, prompting humans to move to remaining habitable niches in Sudanese Sahara. The end of the rains and return of desert conditions throughout the Sahara after 5,500 coincides with population return to the Nile Valley and the beginning of pharaonic society.
UNQUOTE

So as you see I don't think that the Romans could deplete any forest in the Sahara! :-)



Sergio

[alvin]

Talked to a few other people at lunch time a few days ago. Heard one theory saying the Earth might be entering a new ice age now. Saying ice age cycle is 10,000 years, and last ice age was 10,000 years ago, so timing is correct. I started worrying about this. My spouse was more calm "worry about what? this is not your problem alone"...

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by alvin

Heard one theory saying the Earth might be entering a new ice age now.

Really?!? I think I've read that on some forum too...

I spent about 3 - 4 hours today up in my attic under the roof, where it joins the walls...My roof is not equally sloped F&R...The front is a much steeper pitch - I can't even stand up on it...The rear is almost flat...And of course I had to get down on my stomach and crawl back under the eves of the flat part...About a half dozen times. Just enough room to lay flat and squirm around. I found the source of my bathroom rainstorm...A blocked bathroom ceiling fan vent hose...The snow was blowing in the outside peckerhead and then melting and running down into the bathroom. I filled the 4" conduit with some spray-on expanding foam-in-a-can and clamped a neopreme cap over the end. That should hold it from getting snow/ice in until Spring. I threw the vent hose away, pulled the electrical wires out of the ceiling fan/light, and gave the fan fixture conduit end a shot of foam as well. I hope that keeps the bathroom heat from going up into the attic..

It was 16º outside, not all that cold in the attic. I had a new roof put on in 2010, and they put 4 vents in the roof. It should have been much colder up there, but I seem to be leaking a lot of heat into the attic. WW II house [1942], 2-wire electrical system [no grounds], old ground up paper for insulation. I'm in the process of laying R13 over the paper insulation but I run out of $$$ pretty quick. I'm about half done. Hopefully finish it off this year.

[cirelaw]

Ouch!! I pray things get better! Eric

[Diver6106]

... so was I Sergio. My relatives were living in a cave near Borgiallo back then (Vercellino, Temporino, Configliacco - Canova the famous marble sculpture).

[sheepherder]

After spending hours on my stomach crawling around my attic yesterday, today I went up on the ladder to shovel some of the 18 inches of snow off my back porch roof. The snow & ice was so heavy that I couldn't get the back door to open more than 8 - 10 inches - just enough for me & dog to get out.

It was too slippery to stand on the roof itself, I had to stand on the ladder and poke away with my shovel. It wasn't long enough to get to the last three feet, so I had to modify it...

Yes, I don't only make long barrels for Lugers, Lahtis, and Nambus; I also make eight foot show shovels...

It's not perfect; the PVC is too springy. I couldn't find any farm implement that used a long hardwood handle.

Couldn't find ANY steel snow shovel, they're all plastic. Ace had a couple of thin steel 'snow pushers', but I needed a shovel big enough to move a cubic foot of snow at a time. I may have to make one.