Sissy stuff to keep warm with during the "VORTEX"?

[andyg0404]

I'm grateful that we haven't had any snow but it's 20 degrees and the temperature is dropping quickly. Accuweather tells me that by 6AM tomorrow morning it will be 2 degrees and feel like 22 below zero with the wind chill. Won't be anything like the Midwest with temperatures at 50 to 60 below zero but certainly cold enough. The wind has been blowing as well which is always scary. Something fell off my house a little while ago and I can't determine where it was attached. My go to guy isn't working now due to injury so I'm going to have to find a replacement soon as I don't want to let this sort of thing go. I have a feeling I'm going to opt out of my morning walk tomorrow.

[Angela M...]

Hey Andy, it is hard to find reliable people to do work on your house these days. It took ,e months to find somebody to replace aluminum facia that blew off my house in a spring storm. The came and replaced it and cleaned my eves for me but it was $250.00 for an hours work. Still I could not do it myself and my brother is working in the U.K. for awhile now so he is not available. Stay warm Andy and easy on the walking if you must,

[Betty]

Andy, this cold is heading your way... with a lot less snow. We're right downwind from the lake so winds pick up moisture & dump it on the land. Usually the "lake effect" band of snow just misses us & hits south of the city (traditionally called the snow belt), but this one hit us directly. In the summer the same "lake effect" blows hot steamy, swampy humidity our way.

Right now there's about 15 inches of snow on the ground. 0F (-18C), wind chill -24F (-31C) & falling. 25mph winds, 40mph gusts.

Current view of the Great Lakes from space. The red dot is me:

[samantha1]

Hi Betty,is this weather one of the worst that usa has had

[andyg0404]

Hi,

Last night we got the forecasted 15 minutes of snow which put some white on the ground but no accumulation. I went out with the shovel but it only took a few minutes to push it aside. I knew it would freeze so I threw the calcium chloride as well. It was really bitter cold for the few minutes I was outside.

When I awoke at 6:45AM this morning I checked the thermometer and it was 3 degrees below zero. This is a new record for me if not the town. I walked down the block to get the newspapers but that was it. I came home and took another ride on the bicycle. It’s just too cold to be outside for any period of time. The treacherous footing was another reason I decided not to take my walk.

Hope everyone is able to stay inside and keep warm. The forecast for my area says it will start to warm up by Saturday and may hit 60 degrees next week. Can our weather get more erratic?

Andy G.

[Betty]

Hi Betty, is this weather one of the worst that usa has had.

No, Just the worst of the winter season so far. We've had waist to shoulder deep snow plenty of times in my life. -50F wind chills too. Every few years, the suburbs just a few miles south of me can get snow up to their roof eaves... but those are those suburban single-story ranch style houses.

Since these polar vortexes have been more common though, the state of Michigan is consistently the coldest state in the USA in winter -- not Alaska far to the north. But the most populated cities in Alaska typically have milder winters than we do in Buffalo too. It's currently 24 degrees warmer in Anchorage Alaska than it is here.

These new arctic vortexes make sudden & bizzare changes in the weather. They used to be a rare thing, but now these vortexes are common, one right after another. Sunday & Monday is will be warm & raining. All that rain & snow melting is gonna cause some severe flooding. My block is on high ground, & my house is on a hill, so I should be safe from floods.

The 1976-77 storms was the worst snow & cold in my town during my lifetime. But just a dozen or 2 miles south of me they get it that bad or worse every 3-4 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-gRb_MuUgg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK0e4mwK34M

[Betty]

It was really bitter cold for the few minutes I was outside.

Be careful. With the high winds it's more dangerously cold than the thermometer shows. You body temperature can drop rather quickly & incapacitate you. As your body temperature drops, you don't think clearly, & can make mistakes... foolish mistakes you'd normally not do, & you get weak as your heart races dangerously high. One slip, by the time you struggle to get back up, your temperature may have dropped enough to not be sensibly thinking anymore, or be weakened enough not have the strength to make it back inside in time.

I'm sure when it gets this bad, nobody will mind if your snow isn't shoveled until it gets back up too the teens or 20s, or wait for the wind to calm down. Screw them anyway. Your life & safety are more important than a few inches of snow on the sidewalk that may annoy someone.

[Angela M...]

Well we are getting slammed again with snow and ice pellets today. Some of the highways to Niagara and Toronto and the north were closed and driving is pretty slick. Schools closed in most of southern Ontario for the third or fourth day in the past few weeks. I don't ever remember schools closing in my day and we walked quite a long way to school in snow two feet deep and we were expected to be on time also. Often on our way home we would go into the train station to use the bathroom as it was about half way home but I remember once in a blizzard the doors were locked and both my sister and I had wet pants by the time we arrived home. Mom was not mad knowing how far we had come and the terrible weather but she had us strip off in front of the stove and there is me in panties and white tights. Mom knew about the tights as she had given me some of my sisters when she saw my red legs after walking to school. She did not know I was wearing the panties though and there was our neighbour sitting having tea with mom. I am not sure who was blushing more, me or mom. I was still wearing my English school uniform then as we had no extra money for long pants and yes the kids did tease quite a bit when I first wore them to school but mom had explained to the teachers previously about my short pants uniform. This was 1957 and we had just come to Canada in October. We thought the Fall was beautiful but then came winter.

[Betty]

Pretty mild in the city right now. TV weather peeps tend to exaggerate & hype up the weather for attention & ratings.

I hear south & north of the city got worse than we did. Sleet & rain freezing on power lines & branches weighing them down during high winds expected tonight, can cause power failures.

Power failures of more than a few hours can be fatal to me if my COPD is real bad at the time. The barometer usually drops dramatically during a storm. Low air pressue almost always causes my COPD to get real bad. Stress also makes it bad. During an outage, switching over hoses to a smaller unit, & battery backup power to save your life when your oxygen suddenly gets cut off can be pretty stressful.

I've had oxygen failures before during nice weather. I just barely made it, gasping for air, while trying to get alternative my sources of O2 running before I'd get a heart attack or pass out. Those machines take 12 minutes to deliver their full rated O2, & 2-3 minutes to deliver just a little bit that might help.

Laying or sitting around, or sleeping I need very little of no O2. But suddenly running around to switch over machines, hoses, & battery back up requires a lot of moving around & oxygen. So you gasp, start to go slower, get mixed up, & confused when you're suddenly starved of oxygen trying to get around without any. The whole situation gets exponentially desperate & deadly in just a couple minutes.

Think of it like trying to do complicated tasks while drowning at the same time. Once oxygen starved, you can't even think right any more & don't make sense. A well planned & rehearsed task becomes almost impossible to do & think through while gasping for air.

I need a lot of O2 just to walk across the room or go to the bathroom on a good day.

[Betty]

Up to 75mph (121kmh) winds expected here from lunchtime Sunday to Monday morning. 70-75mph is considered hurricane force.

Our infrastructure, buildings, & power lines are not designed to handle much above 50-55mph wind here. Our trees don't even grow to handle as much wind as coastal & other areas who get hurricane force winds at least once every year or 2. They're not even the same kind of trees. A 70mph wind here can be as damaging as 150mph in areas used to high winds. It's not our normal climate, & what we're used to or prepared for.

It's like everything closes & people have severe accidents when Virginia or Florida get 1-3" of snow, but 6" of snow here is no big deal. It's what you & your infrastructure is used to.

I don't know if I can survive an extended power outage in my condition. Everybody I know that's still alive lives too far away & can't get here if something goes wrong... especially during a storm. Most of them are almost as old or frail as me, so really couldn't help me get down the stairs, haul my O2, & 31 pound O2 machine down the stairs even if they could make it here in time during a storm.

And what about the cats if I do manage to abandon the place in an emergency?

If power outages were widespread, where would I plug into even if I could get out & seek refuge somewhere. Cell phone towers & lines may be out, so maybe can't call anybody anyway.

If you don't hear from me by Tuesday, I probably didn't pull through the storm OK. This one appears it's gonna be serious. The ones severely disabled or on O2 are the first to be lost in stuff like this.

When the city is swamped with emergency calls & I can't live more than a few minutes without O2 will they get to me in time? I have some backup O2, & a small unreliable weak O2 machine that will run a while on battery packs, but that not enough for a long term serious storm & outage. The smaller weak machine only delivers enough O2 to survive a short time on the best of days at rest. During a storm & outage, I'll probably need much more O2, not less... especially if a window blows out of something.

To make it worse, during storms, the barometer usually drops dramatically, which is the worst thing for my COPD. Low air pressure is like breathing thin air on a small mountain. So even without an outage, I can expect my breathing to become very difficult. When the barometer drops quickly, I don't even have time to adapt & adjust to it.

Local media reports:

From WIVB: Potentially damaging strong wind gusts will sharply increase to 60, and at times up to 75 mph. This increase will begin late morning, with the strongest gusts found in the early-mid afternoon hours. This wind has the potential to break records in Buffalo. Wind damage and power outages are possible, and may take up to 48 hours to fix. This will also result in a significant rise in water levels along eastern Lake Erie, with lakeshore flooding likely. Temperatures plunge into the 20s toward evening. This will result in a flash freeze of any residual water.

From NOAA/gov: .FROM EARLY SUNDAY MORNING THROUGH LATE MONDAY MORNING -- THE STRONGEST WINDS WILL BE SUNDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING. WINDS...SOUTHWEST 30 TO 40 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 75 MPH. * IMPACTS...STRONG WIND GUSTS WILL BRING DOWN NUMEROUS TREES AND POWER LINES AND RESULT IN WIDESPREAD POWER OUTAGES. POWER MAY BE OUT FOR SEVERAL DAYS IN SOME AREAS. TRAVEL IN HIGH PROFILE VEHICLES WILL BE VERY DIFFICULT AT TIMES. WIDESPREAD POWER OUTAGES ARE EXPECTED.

From WKBW: Temperatures will tumble through the 40s by lunchtime as wind gusts begin to hit their peak gusts of 60-75mph. The air will continue to cool into the 30s by later in the evening allowing for snow showers to develop dropping 2-3" over portions of Central Erie county, Wyoming and North areas of the Southern Tier. Power outages will begin to occur before noon and travel will be disrupted.

From WGRZ: West winds sustained of 35 to 45 mph with gusts up to 75 mph are possible with the strongest gusts most likely closest to Lake Erie.Winds of this magnitude could knock over trees and cause power outages, especially with saturated grounds from the combination of rainfall and snowmelt from warmer air moving in. Western New Yorkers should prepare for the possibility of power outages that could last several days. A Winter Weather Advisory for Erie, Genesee, Wyoming, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties from 3pm Sunday through Monday morning. 2 to 5 inches of lake effect snow and also blowing snow will greatly reduce visibility to near whiteout at times.