Why Is Extreme Cold Causing Chaos in England and Power Outages in the US?

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In summary: I've got an electric blanket, it would be a good excuse to need to stay in bed all day :tongue:It's always summer in Los Angeles :P Same with Darwin, Australia Actually, I had to deal with temps in the minus-30's frequently when I was a ski patrol member on a very windy mountain in northern Maine.In summary, it's cold outside and people are having problems with the heating.
  • #36
hypatia said:
It really describes winters here too.
Well, yeah... you have that whole humidity thing happening. When I lived down there, -20 C felt colder than -45 does here. That's without windchill factors.
 
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  • #37
OK - the US is very competitive, so -

Shocking cold wave drops temps to 40 below zero
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090114/ap_on_re_us/snowstorm

MINNEAPOLIS – Temperatures crashed to Arctic levels Tuesday as a severe cold wave rolled across the upper Midwest on the heels of yet another snowstorm, closing schools and making most people think twice before going outside. Early Wednesday, the cold front swept into New York, sending temperatures falling from the 30s a day before to single digits or below zero. It hit 8 below in Massena, on the St. Lawrence River in northern New York, with the wind chill making it feel like minus 25 degrees.

In Michigan, temperatures Wednesday morning ranged from minus 17 at Ironwood in the western Upper Peninsula to 10 degrees in the southwestern Lower Peninsula and 12 on Beaver Island. Ironwood earlier recorded a temperature of minus 23.
. . . .
Some Minnesotans took it as just another winter day, even in the state's extreme northwest corner where thermometers bottomed out at 38 degrees below zero at the town of Hallock and the National Weather Service said the wind chill was a shocking 58 below.
. . . .
 
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  • #38
When I leave for work in the morning it will be a shivering -21 C, or -6 F{actual without wind chill}. Its been snowing most of the day, and road salt is not working at 9 F. It took me almost 2 hours to make the 40 minute drive home.
 
  • #40
So Cold (song):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTiGlNDnOtE

Excuse my sarcasm.
 
  • #41
Not so bad here ... yet. We have topped out at 7.5 deg F, though the winds today made outdoor activity uncomfortable for the unprepared. I had to shovel the stuff that the plows pushed back so that my newpapers and mail can be delivered, and I neglected to wear a hat with ear-flaps. Very soon, I was reminded of an old frostbite injury (ear-lobe). Temps are supposed to be lower for the next few days - winter is here. The wood stove is hungrier than normal during these cold winds, but I've got plenty of "food" saved up for it.
 
  • #42
Greg, you really don't need to send it over to Michigan, not that we don't love your gifts, but please no more cold, stick to cheese:!)
 
  • #43
More than a million wait in icy darkness across US

Well over a million people shivered in ice-bound homes across the country Wednesday, waiting for warmer weather and for utility crews to restring power lines brought down by a storm that killed 23 as it took a snowy, icy journey from the Southern Plains to the East Coast.

But with temperatures plunging, utility officials warned that it could be mid-February before electricity is restored to some of the hardest-hit places. The worst of the power failures were in Kentucky, Arkansas and Ohio.

Just getting to their source was difficult for utility crews. Ice-encrusted tree limbs and power lines blocked glazed roads, and cracking limbs pierced the air like popping gunfire as they snapped.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090128/ap_on_re_us/winter_storm
 
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  • #44
Evo said:
More than a million wait in icy darkness across US
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090128/ap_on_re_us/winter_storm
We had a really bad ice-storm here years ago during an uncharacteristic warm winter spell. We had no power for a week (some people had no power for a month) and in the days immediately after the storm, I spent my time helping the doctors that I worked for keep their houses heated (powering their furnaces with generators) and it was surreal spending time outside. Every few minutes or less, you'd hear a crack like a rifle-shot as another tree split or fell and think "there are some more power lines down" since in Waterville most of the largest trees were big elms, oaks, and maples lining the streets, where the overhead power lines ran.

I ***** about the heavy snow-fall but I'd much rather have snow than ice.

Edit: [female dog]
 
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