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2022-2023 Winter Weather Thread


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13 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

It's crazy the PTSD Feb 2021 has caused.  It's going to be in the 50s/60s today across the vast majority of the "grid"  A somewhat similar forecast for tomorrow.  Get pretty fucking cold Thursday night/Friday morning rebounding to above freezing by Sunday and back into 40s/50s by Monday and people are blowing out sprinkler systems.   This kind of 36-48 hour cold snap, where maybe 24 of it is really fucking cold by Texas standards, is a completely normal event and people going full apocalypse mode. 

Now all that said, if that's the path you choose, I don't find fault with you at all based on the repeated incompetence we have seen.

Yeah, totally.  Ask anyone in Houston who lived through Harvey.  I get it.  

That said, I have to move and cover an assload of plants and that sucks.

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36 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

It's crazy the PTSD Feb 2021 has caused.  It's going to be in the 50s/60s today across the vast majority of the "grid"  A somewhat similar forecast for tomorrow.  Get pretty fucking cold Thursday night/Friday morning rebounding to above freezing by Sunday and back into 40s/50s by Monday and people are blowing out sprinkler systems.   This kind of 36-48 hour cold snap, where maybe 24 of it is really fucking cold by Texas standards, is a completely normal event and people going full apocalypse mode. 

Now all that said, if that's the path you choose, I don't find fault with you at all based on the repeated incompetence we have seen.

It seems like the grid should be ok given a short term event and not ice which if I recall correctly caused a lot of the grid problems.  But yeah, I have PTSD from that and ended up only losing landscaping.  That sucked.  At least this will be shorter.

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46 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

It's crazy the PTSD Feb 2021 has caused.  It's going to be in the 50s/60s today across the vast majority of the "grid"  A somewhat similar forecast for tomorrow.  Get pretty fucking cold Thursday night/Friday morning rebounding to above freezing by Sunday and back into 40s/50s by Monday and people are blowing out sprinkler systems.   This kind of 36-48 hour cold snap, where maybe 24 of it is really fucking cold by Texas standards, is a completely normal event and people going full apocalypse mode. 

Now all that said, if that's the path you choose, I don't find fault with you at all based on the repeated incompetence we have seen.

Thank You Michael Scott GIFs | Tenor

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47 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

It's crazy the PTSD Feb 2021 has caused.  It's going to be in the 50s/60s today across the vast majority of the "grid"  A somewhat similar forecast for tomorrow.  Get pretty fucking cold Thursday night/Friday morning rebounding to above freezing by Sunday and back into 40s/50s by Monday and people are blowing out sprinkler systems.   This kind of 36-48 hour cold snap, where maybe 24 of it is really fucking cold by Texas standards, is a completely normal event and people going full apocalypse mode. 

Now all that said, if that's the path you choose, I don't find fault with you at all based on the repeated incompetence we have seen.

 Yes, a cold snap isn't out of the norm. But this particularly cold snap is significantly colder than usual, even more so when accounting for wind chill.  Low for Houston in 2020 was 32 degrees F. It was 31 in 2019. 19, 23, 32, 30, 25, 31, 31, 23,  and 21 going back to 2010. It'll be 17 on Thursday with 21 mph wind. That's significantly colder than the average low and the second coldest low over the last 12 years (first being the 2021 freeze). 

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I have serious PTSD from the 2021 storm. We had no power or water for 5 days. All told we lost power for a significant stretch 3 times that winter. But that was (hopefully) different, for a few reasons:

1. We had significant snow and ice, which fucked up power lines all over the state / city.

2. It was much colder, much longer. Pretty sure there was a stretch of 48 hours where the temp didn’t get above 20 F and a longer stretch significantly below freezing. We’re only looking at one day where the highs don’t get above freezing. 

3. The state had yet to fix its power grid by connecting a shitload of crypto miners to it, which will provide a free market incentive for massive new investment in power generation and distribution before Thursday.

That said, I’ll be ready to fire up the generator if needed. 

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Just now, BrickHorn said:

I have serious PTSD from the 2021 storm. We had no power or water for 5 days. All told we lost power for a significant stretch 3 times that winter. But that was (hopefully) different, for a few reasons:

1. We had significant snow and ice, which fucked up power lines all over the state / city.

2. It was much colder, much longer. Pretty sure there was a stretch of 48 hours where the temp didn’t get above 20 F and a longer stretch significantly below freezing. We’re only looking at one day where the highs don’t get above freezing. 

3. The state had yet to fix its power grid by connecting a shitload of crypto miners to it, which will provide a free market incentive for massive new investment in power generation and distribution before Thursday.

That said, I’ll be ready to fire up the generator if needed. 

Yeah.....I hate to tell you this, but those, ummm, "grid fixes?"  Wouldn't bank on those just yet.

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We had a similar cold snap in January of 2017 that was only a couple of degrees warmer. I think I did the bare minimum for that and we made it through. The real break will come from the sun coming out with no cloud cover on Friday. The forecast may show it only getting into the mid 30s, but that sun exposure will thaw us out. We are getting only about 12 to 14 hours of sun freezing with no sun. 
 

Snowmageddon had 72 hours below freezing, very little sun, and freezing precip. We should take precautions, but let’s take a deep breath. My only concern is that my heat pump is now just over 10 years old. It ran for what seemed like 3 days straight in 2021 and handled it like a champ and I’ve kept it in good condition, but Murphy’s Law is ever-present. 

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17 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yeah.....I hate to tell you this, but those, ummm, "grid fixes?"  Wouldn't bank on those just yet.

I'm not confident it's "fixed" but this is a completely different type of storm.  If this causes a shutdown with no precipitation across the state then we are more fucked than we thought.  

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2 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

It's crazy the PTSD Feb 2021 has caused.  It's going to be in the 50s/60s today across the vast majority of the "grid"  A somewhat similar forecast for tomorrow.  Get pretty fucking cold Thursday night/Friday morning rebounding to above freezing by Sunday and back into 40s/50s by Monday and people are blowing out sprinkler systems.   This kind of 36-48 hour cold snap, where maybe 24 of it is really fucking cold by Texas standards, is a completely normal event and people going full apocalypse mode. 

Now all that said, if that's the path you choose, I don't find fault with you at all based on the repeated incompetence we have seen.

But you're gonna bitch about it anyway, huh?  Username definitely checks out.

I'll blow my lines all I want, and I'll thank you to stay out of my private life, you prevert!

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29 minutes ago, Skipper said:

I'm not confident it's "fixed" but this is a completely different type of storm.  If this causes a shutdown with no precipitation across the state then we are more fucked than we thought.  

 

28 minutes ago, Hate said:

From what I understand, the "grid" has enough supply but there will be local impacts due to downed trees.  The wind is supposed to be strong to quite strong.

Precipitation generally isn't the issue with the overall grid challenges.  What hurt the most last time was the bitterly cold temps for a long period of time that caused natural gas gathering lines to freeze (there's water in the lines, which makes them susceptible to that).  No gas, no gas fired generation.  A crapload of gas-fired generation went off line because their gas supply shut down.  There was also an issue with the supply freezing closer to the plants.

This freeze won't be as hard, or for as long, so that problem won't be AS prevalent, but remember, we were perilously close to grid failure in 2011 when temps were a lot closer to what we'll be seeing now.  And very few of those gas lines and facilities have undertaken significant winterization efforts since 2/2021.  

Just because this isn't as hard or lengthy a freeze, I don't see the widespread and lengthy outages of 2021 being likely.  But there is definitely a risk of some rolling outages.

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Even if power goes out on a rolling or sustained basis, this won’t be nearly as dangerous as the last one. The temps will be higher, so home interiors won’t get dangerously cold. And there’s no precip in the forecast, so people can drive to hotels or friends / family to warm up. Plus we’re not in Covid lockdown, another factor that stuck people in their own homes despite lack of utilities last go round. 

I figure if the power goes out for more than a couple of hours, I’ll drain the plumbing, drive the family to a hotel, and make a mini vacation out of it. That wasn’t an option in February 2021. 

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5 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

Even if power goes out on a rolling or sustained basis, this won’t be nearly as dangerous as the last one. The temps will be higher, so home interiors won’t get dangerously cold. And there’s no precip in the forecast, so people can drive to hotels or friends / family to warm up. Plus we’re not in Covid lockdown, another factor that stuck people in their own homes despite lack of utilities last go round. 

I figure if the power goes out for more than a couple of hours, I’ll drain the plumbing, drive the family to a hotel, and make a mini vacation out of it. That wasn’t an option in February 2021. 

Correct.  Having mobility will save lives, even if power goes out -- most people can leave and go somewhere warmer.  And yes, outages are likely to be much shorter in duration, with less of a temp differential.

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1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

 

Precipitation generally isn't the issue with the overall grid challenges.  What hurt the most last time was the bitterly cold temps for a long period of time that caused natural gas gathering lines to freeze (there's water in the lines, which makes them susceptible to that).  No gas, no gas fired generation.  A crapload of gas-fired generation went off line because their gas supply shut down.  There was also an issue with the supply freezing closer to the plants.

 

No desire to go Cloak and I fully recall gas was the main bust, but wasn't part of the problem that solar and wind were basically at zero due to cloud cover and ice/frozen turbines in '21?  I would think we'll be getting significantly more out of renewables this time around as well.

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22 hours ago, Anastasis said:

I use these and then put the foam domes over the top of that and then wrap in a towel if necessary over that.  When the shit really hits the fan, the last ditch is turning the water off at the street. During snowpocalypse we had neighbors with waterfalls coming out of their houses. Only thing that I had to navigate was bitching and moaning from teh wife. 

Gonna revise my methodology cause I just stumbled across some hand warmers in my hunting kit.  Gonna toss one into the sock before it goes on the faucet.

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Multiple issues came to light in 2021 and many of them have been sorted. Fraud with the generators is still dicey. Incompetence at ERCOT due to the hiring of political cronies offering no oversight to the aging bureaucrats isn't a factor this time. ERCOT's new regime isn't nearly as clueless as then. The legislation requiring the generators to weatherize passed. Yeah, Abbott's NG buddies got the last minute reprieve that fucking sucks, but the generation side has been forced to fortify, and they have. There's also a shit ton more rapid deployment generation that didn't exit 22 months ago.

Generation has also dramatically increased local storage of fuel from then to now. Far more battery storage has entered the stack. The wind will be blowing, not enough to blow many things down as supposed up thread, but blowing on 12/22 and most of 12/23 (the coldest day). The cold won't last as long or be as extreme. No ice, no snow. The political landscape is complicated, but Abbott cannot have the fucking grid go down on Christmas weekend and he knows it and they've already been working everyone to have everything on point and online. 

I expect the grid to be fine this weekend, but it will have cost many org's supplying power to customers a pretty fucking penny to ensure that their part of it is good. Wholesale prices lost all logic last week for this weekend and they've been sustained since then at bankrupting prices as though the grid is certain to fail. It's emotional and extremely overbought. 

The biggest risk for both a major real time price event and grid issues will be the morning of Christmas Eve, when the wind will not be blowing and temps will be incredibly low for this time of year. That's offset by the things I already mentioned, plus it's one of the lowest usage days of the year - it's a weekend holiday day with almost no C&I demand. 

This winter has the makings of a wave cycle. We had the same cold front in the third week of October, then the third week of November, and now this. The patterns follow an aging La Nina (this one is finally waning after 3 years) and mirrors disturbingly closely to the winters, with the same La Nina situation, of 83-84, 85-86, and 96-97. The January pattern following the December pattern for 1984 was a level worse than that of what we experienced in Feb 2021. Given the electrification of everything, and that we're adding the equivalent of Corpus Christi in population every few years, and that the fucking NG companies bought their way out of having to weatherize, I really don't even want to contemplate the impact of an event on that level, even with everyone else involved doing what was needed. Could be terrible a month from now. Hoping not. 

 

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Multiple issues came to light in 2021 and many of them have been sorted. Fraud with the generators is still dicey. Incompetence at ERCOT due to the hiring of political cronies offering no oversight to the aging bureaucrats isn't a factor this time. ERCOT's new regime isn't nearly as clueless as then. The legislation requiring the generators to weatherize passed. Yeah, Abbott's NG buddies got the last minute reprieve that fucking sucks, but the generation side has been forced to fortify, and they have. There's also a shit ton more rapid deployment generation that didn't exit 22 months ago.
Generation has also dramatically increased local storage of fuel from then to now. Far more battery storage has entered the stack. The wind will be blowing, not enough to blow many things down as supposed up thread, but blowing on 12/22 and most of 12/23 (the coldest day). The cold won't last as long or be as extreme. No ice, no snow. The political landscape is complicated, but Abbott cannot have the fucking grid go down on Christmas weekend and he knows it and they've already been working everyone to have everything on point and online. 
I expect the grid to be fine this weekend, but it will have cost many org's supplying power to customers a pretty fucking penny to ensure that their part of it is good. Wholesale prices lost all logic last week for this weekend and they've been sustained since then at bankrupting prices as though the grid is certain to fail. It's emotional and extremely overbought. 
The biggest risk for both a major real time price event and grid issues will be the morning of Christmas Eve, when the wind will not be blowing and temps will be incredibly low for this time of year. That's offset by the things I already mentioned, plus it's one of the lowest usage days of the year - it's a weekend holiday day with almost no C&I demand. 
This winter has the makings of a wave cycle. We had the same cold front in the third week of October, then the third week of November, and now this. The patterns follow an aging La Nina (this one is finally waning after 3 years) and mirrors disturbingly closely to the winters, with the same La Nina situation, of 83-84, 85-86, and 96-97. The January pattern following the December pattern for 1984 was a level worse than that of what we experienced in Feb 2021. Given the electrification of everything, and that we're adding the equivalent of Corpus Christi in population every few years, and that the fucking NG companies bought their way out of having to weatherize, I really don't even want to contemplate the impact of an event on that level, even with everyone else involved doing what was needed. Could be terrible a month from now. Hoping not. 
 

Your entire last paragraph either gave Brisket heart palpitations or a hard on.

Maybe both.
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It's crazy the PTSD Feb 2021 has caused.  It's going to be in the 50s/60s today across the vast majority of the "grid"  A somewhat similar forecast for tomorrow.  Get pretty fucking cold Thursday night/Friday morning rebounding to above freezing by Sunday and back into 40s/50s by Monday and people are blowing out sprinkler systems.   This kind of 36-48 hour cold snap, where maybe 24 of it is really fucking cold by Texas standards, is a completely normal event and people going full apocalypse mode. 
Now all that said, if that's the path you choose, I don't find fault with you at all based on the repeated incompetence we have seen.
Meh, it takes 5 minutes and I have one zone that is fairly shallow, the rest I don't need to fuck with.
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8 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

It's crazy the PTSD Feb 2021 has caused.  It's going to be in the 50s/60s today across the vast majority of the "grid"  A somewhat similar forecast for tomorrow.  Get pretty fucking cold Thursday night/Friday morning rebounding to above freezing by Sunday and back into 40s/50s by Monday and people are blowing out sprinkler systems.   This kind of 36-48 hour cold snap, where maybe 24 of it is really fucking cold by Texas standards, is a completely normal event and people going full apocalypse mode. 

Now all that said, if that's the path you choose, I don't find fault with you at all based on the repeated incompetence we have seen.

Yeah no precipitation and only a few hours where it dips into single digits isn't going to do much at all

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18 minutes ago, Loop 1604 said:

Drip hose bibs or cover with cheap foam covers? Both?

What I did  in Feb 2021 was just use some old bath towels and wrap with Duct tape    The one pipe that was exposed outside which is faucet attached to main waterline coming from the meter into the house was wrapped with foam.     I didn't drip the faucets outside at all. 

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What I did  in Feb 2021 was just use some old bath towels and wrap with Duct tape    The one pipe that was exposed outside which is faucet attached to main waterline coming from the meter into the house was wrapped with foam.     I didn't drip the faucets outside at all. 
Yep, worked for me too, even if you only have the foam ones or none at all, wrap with towel/duct tape.
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1 hour ago, Loop 1604 said:

Drip hose bibs or cover with cheap foam covers? Both?

We had so much time freezing in 2021 that I got to test things out.

Covers alone (no drip) led to freezing up. Allowing them to drip with covers on (I drilled a hole in the bottom of the cover to let the water flow out) kept them running. 

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7 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

Don't forget about this son of a gun.   That's a $200 bill or more if it becomes a gusher.   

I remember all the sprinklers shooting water after a big freeze in Houston.  When we moved to Austin, I kept trying to figure out where ours was located only to find the cover on the ground under a layer of leaves... its buried underground here.  I just make sure that area is somewhat insulated (threw a bag of unopened dirt on top of the cover last night) and its all good.  Austin is definitely more resilient than H-Town but yeah it gets colder.

On the hose bibs, I put the insulated covers on and then wrap the covers with towels and tie them on.  Worked in 2021.  

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55 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

We had so much time freezing in 2021 that I got to test things out.

Covers alone (no drip) led to freezing up. Allowing them to drip with covers on (I drilled a hole in the bottom of the cover to let the water flow out) kept them running. 

My only concern with that strategy is you could somehow have frozen water inside the cover that could eventually impact the drip.  Guessing you didn't deal with that at all last time?

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My master plumber on staff is team no-drip.  We install frost-free spigots on all new construction, but he still recommends protecting those.  

What he does suggest dripping when it gets down into the single digits or stays below freezing for more than 48 hours is hot water through any interior fixture mounted on an exterior wall and opening up cabinets beneath them where possible.  I didn't have any burst pipes in '21, but I did have three bathrooms where water wouldn't run because the pipes were frozen solid.  And that's with 1" insulation on all PEX plus spray-foam insulation on 2x6 exterior walls.  Neither of that matters when you're 4+ days with no power and the temperature inside the house gets down to the mid-40s.  

The reason we had such carnage in '21 was compounded by the power outages.  Exterior mounted tankless water heaters don't do very well when they don't have power to keep from freezing.  And, once they're frozen, it's cost prohibitive to make repairs, so that means a full replacement.

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They're predicting actual temps of 7° and wind chill of -15° with winds 25 - 30 mph with gusts 40 - 50 mph. They are freaking out at work because we have a big construction project with a tight deadline. Fortunately they got the concrete work done. I made a quick check of my wellhouse and it's a good thing I did. Landscapers had uncovered the faucet outside the wellhouse. All the foam rubber I was using for insulation was gone. Fortunately, I'm a pack rat and found 3 pieces of foam that were perfect. Threw in an old rag shirt for good measure and covered it with a bucket.

I walk in the wellhouse and it's not particularly warm. Test the milkhouse heater and coils come on, but the fan is shit. I could go to the local hardware store that's owned by an ex-cop I don't like and give him my money, but that's not how I roll. Had a spare non electronic controlled (old fashioned, important if the power goes out) space heater I kept in my den so I relocated that temporarily and ordered a new milkhouse heater from Amazon for $30. I guarantee you I couldn't have bought one that cheap from Deputy Dawg. First thing he did was mark up everything 30% when he heard the forecast.

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