Weather Thread

[shafnutz05]

With the obvious caveat that modeling can change, another winter storm coming Wednesday night into Thursday.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Stupid question but why don't houses have insulation in Texas etc?

Wouldn't you also want to keep the heat OUT?

They do, but it isn't the same level of insulation you'd see up north. This is so far from "normal" that even newer homes wouldn't have the right insulation, more than likely. I would assume most homes have heat pumps, which are about useless below freezing - if they even had power to begin with.

I just saw a picture of a guy who kept water in his bathtub - another issue is frozen pipes - but the bathtub is now frozen over. That's not good.

[RonnieFranchise]

Lack of basements is also a problem in Texas- one of my coworkers had their water heater in their garage freeze. It would take a long time with no power for a water heater in the basement to freeze.

[willeyeam]

another winter storm coming Wednesday night into Thursday.

sure shad i bet it is

[RonnieFranchise]

With the obvious caveat that modeling can change, another winter storm coming Wednesday night into Thursday.

FAKE NEWS

[mac5155]

Lack of basements is also a problem in Texas- one of my coworkers had their water heater in their garage freeze. It would take a long time with no power for a water heater in the basement to freeze.

Good point. Guess I thought that they would have auxillary heat sources and most likely don't unless they happen to have a fireplace that may have been for decoration.

I assume not much natural gas in the area either

[dodint]

Weirdly we had a wood fireplace in NC of all places. We loved it during stuff like this.

[since1970]

I'm currently in Dallas, and the situation is ridiculous.They get a quarter of their power from windmills in west Texas and half of those are frozen, and they keep saying that natural gas production has been affected by price and COVID, plus some of their generators went offline due to power outages, it looks like they had zero emergency response set up for this since they probably figured it would never happen. They said there were supposed to be rolling blackouts, but there are areas that never lost power, where I've had 3 1/2 hours power in the past 28, at 4:30 am it was 1 degree, and 44 degrees in my condo, and I came here to visit to get out of winter.

[since1970]

Since Texas is the only independent power grid in the US (I think I heard that) there's nothing we can go but wait. I'm not even going to start on the roads, at least 75/35 are ok, but the side streets are all packed snow and ice, this from 4/5 inches over two days. I can't wait to get back to Pgh and 30 degrees.

[MR25]

Little more on the Texas power thing, WRT coal/nat gas

[RonnieFranchise]

One of my employees in Houston just got power back, but now a water main broke that will take days to repair.

The electric is going to be the immediate problem but I think the number of burst pipes with limited resources to fix them all could be an ongoing nightmare.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Evidently, wind turbines are heated in colder climates. No need to have the Texas mills heated, normally.

[since1970]

The whole problem comes down to not wanting to spend the money on issues that historically don't happen, but how much more expensive is a turbine with a heating element compared to doing on the fly, and money looks like the issue with natural gas, and how does an energy company not have a plan for when their generators go down. Fireplaces don't really work well unless you're 3 feet in front of them, also, unless you go out and cut down a tree everyone is sold out of stuff to burn right now, and any hotels that have power are full. I just hope there aren't any deaths over this, it's a complete cluster f.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

Little more on the Texas power thing, WRT coal/nat gas

This is amazing solely because the Permian basin has an outrageously large amount of natural gas that they have previously just let burn off because a. its not as profitable as oil and b. there isn't enough infrastructure to get the gas to market.

[DigitalGypsy66]

This is a February tornado, completely obliterating that house. Scary

[Freddy Rumsen]

Little more on the Texas power thing, WRT coal/nat gas

"Capitalism" seems to be a word for people to use instead of "I don't like this". Energy is incredibly regulated by state and federal agencies.

[Freddy Rumsen]

Clarification on the above.

[mac5155]

I was wondering, they probably shut it down because a regulation forced them to, no?

So they were forced to turn it back on, which then shot the price up to $9k?

IDK. eli5 someone.

[shafnutz05]

With the obvious caveat that modeling can change, another winter storm coming Wednesday night into Thursday.

FAKE NEWS

Yup, storm shifting SE a bit. Benefits me

[mikey]

Hmph, the board filters even picks up image text now...? Think they could have done better canaan valley when they were naming things, but that's [where ever that is] for ya...

[shafnutz05]

This is why being a forecaster is so brutal. This is the last ten GFS runs (so going back 60 hours). This storm has transformed from a "cutter" that heads up through the Great Lakes bringing rain to most of PA, to a classic Miller A Nor'Easter heading up the East Coast with the classic bullseye zone along and just west of Interstate 95.

[dodint]

Classic Miller, that guy.

[Tomas]

Fingers crossed - no blackouts or power outages in NW Arkansas today (and I was lucky not to have any yesterday during the sub-zero temperatures).
Up to 5 extra inches of snow coming in 3-4 hours (on top of 5-6 we already have).
And to think that I had a wilderness cabin reserved for this weekend...

[shafnutz05]

Classic Miller, that guy.

Some light reading

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_Classification

[robbiestoupe]

Is that protomolecule Miller or regular Miller?