Polar Vortex 2014

gif is amazing, watching that all day, thank you dan

skip the truth, gif the legend

lol

59 degrees in NYC tomorrow

Thursday night: 17

For the first time in nearly 100 days, MSP wasn't below freezing overnight.

I have been riding my bike to work through all of this too. two pairs of pants , huge down jacket, balaclava etc

mostly though Im sad abotu the cost of heatin gmy house with oil

https://i.imgur.com/bpxDIpu.png

solid

yeah last night was some day after tomorrow shit, just walking to the corner and back required like a major recovery period.

good luck Midwest

Thanks! Weirdly, it's 35 outside right now, which isn't even hat weather. Hard to believe we're all going to die.

Was talking with my wife, who reminded me I was here when the city last broke a record, in the winter of 1994. I don't remember it that well, unlike a few years back. Probably because I was in college (aka stupid) and didn't have kids t worry about (smart?). I do vividly remember my calculus professor taking us outside and demonstrating that if you blow bubbles in sub zero temperatures the bubbles just freeze as spheres. And if you pop them they deflate and a little bit of mist puffs out.

My science experience from last time around is that if you chuck a cup of boiling water out the door it turns into frozen vapor and floats off before it even hits the ground. That was a great way to kill ... five minutes.

whoa my OP from 5 years ago has today's date

Our office will be closed for weather-related reasons on Wed. for the first time probably in forever. I'll take it.

-6 on Wednesday then 50 on Sunday, sounds about right

my day care closed, that's...not fun

also not fun, my snowblower's out of gas and I can't get to the station right now

xpost *Just* -6? Where are you, Phoenix?

the vortex is even brushing los angeles, we're going to be a chilly 57 later this week

Was talking with my wife, who reminded me I was here when the city last broke a record, in the winter of 1994. I don't remember it that well, unlike a few years back.

Associative memory - the day after the Northridge earthquake was when the 1994 Cold Wave hit the midwest. At work I took a tech support call from someone in Chicago who used to live in California but kept going on and on in an unending tirade about earthquakes, how horrible they are, how much he couldn't deal with him, etc. I asked him how cold it was outside and he said that overnight the birds froze to the trees on his street and that a homeless person was frozen solid to the side of a building and the police couldn't figure out how to remove the body.

Wow

the state college 40 miles north has preemptively cancelled everything from Tuesday night until Thursday. no immediate cancellations on the closest local schools but if Wednesday’s predictions pan out, things will be pretty still. probably should plan on working from home Wednesday because the office will be empty

xpost Huh. I guess that's ... possible.

Related story. Once I went out to LA to visit a friend. I forgot to bring socks (as happens), and went to a store to buy some. Checking out, they asked for my zip, then asked where that was. Chicago, I said. Oh, they said. How cold is it there right now? Well, I said, it's (LA was having a weird winter heatwave) ... exactly 100 degrees colder.

going to check with a few friends who help the local homeless camp because this “hard to believe” junk is not at all hard to believe when it’s happened in milder weather

The kids said the teachers weren't even pretending there would be school Wednesday.

You want hard to believe, look up the stuff about frozen alligators.

I was irritated at the “hard to believe” comment you made about dying, Josh. I know we’ve got a level of disconnect but there are some homeless people I’ve run into locally who, especially with full shelters and a homeless camp that got recently displaced in my area, who are very near freezing to death

I totally believe people freeze to death (though I was thinking more about the birds frozen to the tree). Still, frozen to the side of the building sounded particularly extreme and unique, though I wouldn't be surprised if that happened too. Like you said, stranger and more horrible things happen under the most normal of circumstances.

damn, y'all, stay safe

currently hovering a hair above freezing. which is to say, chilly but not that bad. I think basically everything that's capable of shutting down or moving indoors for the next two days is going to do so. apparently even home heating systems are not designed for temperatures as low as predicted, so they have been sending out a handful of recommendations to prepare.

my back is completely wrecked by having to shovel for 2 hours

I have a snowblower but it can't operate on snow this high, lmao @ me

I spent last week in Arctic Finland, where the temps hovered around -15F all week. But that's going to seem warm compared to what you guys are about to get. RIP

frogbs:

This is some real Chicago shit https://t.co/hGkcNQ1Mos

— Brandon Wall (@Walldo) January 26, 2019

Not particularly bad here yet, supposed to take a turn for the frozen around dinner time, with peak Ice Station Zebra overnight through end of the day Thursday.

-8 in Minneapolis and falling, heading for -28 tonight

Yeah, weather in Chicago at the moment is the kind of bog standard flesh-destroying cold to which I've become accustomed. The polar vortex within my sinuses, however, is seriously harshing my buzz rn.

Ice Station Zebra? wtf is that? Coolest name ever

http://www.gstatic.com/tv/thumb/v22vodart/4184/p4184_v_v8_ac.jpg

killer Silkworm song speaking of Chicago

https://youtu.be/xzWBUtnqJ4I

anyone working outside during this should be getting time and a half. respect.

I used to kinda dig working outside in the wintertime (tho never in such deadly conditions, mad respect).

Temperature dropping, wind picking up. I'm ready for the worst (I guess), but I've got to admit I get a tinge of anxiety every time the heater cycles off.

yea my furnace has busted the last two winters on unusually cold days, this time they say they're *sure* they fixed the problem but I'm not convinced (it's less than 10 years old, btw). not fun coming home and finding the inner temp at 55 and dropping

When we moved in to our current house in time for the last polar vortex, the new heating system would sometimes shut off on the coldest nights. Doing a bunch of research I discovered the problem: the condensation from the heater was freezing in the exhaust pipe, sort of clogging it like an artery, which shifted the pressure and triggered the automatic shutoff. The solution, ironically, was making the room with the heater warmer! Which we did in part by setting the thermostat a little higher; like good environmentalists we had it lower at night.

yeah, on a similar note I have one of the new-style furnaces where the in/out air for the heating unit is via two pvc pipes vented outside, which may be what you mean. if you let either get plugged on the outside — say, they run along the top of your basement near the ground and one rests in a snow bank — then you run into problems

sorta. we have one of those as well, but I was actually thinking of closer to the unit itself. we have two, one for downstairs, one for upstairs, and the one upstairs is in the attic, where it can get really cold. it has a small PVC pipe that drains condensation out and down. we hung up a couple of thick blankets in the access area and that seems to be enough to insulate it. I got a little digital thermometer that I keep up there just to register that it's warm enough.

that said, I have no idea what to expect of anything if it gets as cold as they are predicting.

The heating company warning that's been circulating here basically says that most heating units even in Chicago are not designed for -20 degree temperatures. More like zero or thereabouts. And that when the temperatures reach those lows, it could really be struggling to keep up. Which is why they recommended keeping the thermostat set higher than usual. keeping it running more than usual, I guess, leaves less of a deficit for it to overcome.

of course Big Heat would say that

Ha.

Let the mephitic fumes from Trump's tweets warm y'all tonight!

Josh it's it's only -2 in Chicago what are you guys gonna do, nightswimming?

we just hit -23

i was in -28 once and it was rough, but at least there was little to no wind. can't even imagine it with a 20mph/gusting to 30 breeze like you guys are getting

AccuWeather says the "RealFeel" (tm) is -54

though at a certain point I suppose it's academic