Woke up to find our car battery was dead, which required fumbling about with a jumpstarter in -30°C conditions. If you find some shattered, brittle shards of frozen fingers lying about, those are mine.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
-30°C ?? Surely that’s fake news :(
We were doing that last week, when it was -25°F / -31°C.
A friend of mine was fumbling with the electric cable that goes into the parked car to power the heater. He held it with his mouth and discovered the hard way the insulation was flawed.
Fortunately, he could tear it from his mouth, and the cooked part of his tongue soon grew back.
Had something similar happen when I lived in Dah YooPee. Tried to go to the airport to pick up the Redhead, no power from the battery. She got a ride into town with the local taxi service which keep his vehicle running during the cold spell so he didn’t have any trouble. Two days later, the temperature was up 15℃, and the car started right up with needing a jump.
Having a garage is a life safer, for me, when it is that cold. I was at -23F/-30C this morn and my garage was 0F/-18C.
Whenever it gets this way around here and I venture out in the dark morning hours, this intonation haunts my mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOJVk79N_t4
I have had nightmares that the air turned to liquid.
I once visited Minneapolis (a few years ago) the week after the temp had dropped to -20F. I naively asked a resident colleague whether they all fitted their cars with “block heaters” in anticipation of severe cold. He agreed that most of his friends had done so who were always recommending that he join, and that he was currently reconsidering.
brrrr
aside from that, it is well known even in NE that cold, even when not very severe, can kill batteries more than a few years old. I went through that myself last year as my battery is on the edge of “recommended lifetime” (ie 3yrs old)
I will most likely risk refrain from purchasing this winter, and wait for “summer discounts” (ephemeral as they will most likely be)
The mildly deranged penguin reports initial indications are the current inverted warmer temperatures had no desirable effects, except for a slight decrease in pea activity. Walruses continue to be a problem, and there seems to have been no effect whatsoever on either horses or nazis (albeit the data is still very preliminary). The Earth’s new aether-free zone, or track, was switched to without some of the recent hitches; e.g., this orbit’s-end Doctor Who had possibly fewer gapping plot holes, albeit there continues to be a shortage of butter in France. Her(the mildly deranged penguin, not the new Doctor) guess is the experiment may be continued an orbit from now, albeit that does mean the intervening orbital cycle will be still warmer.
@ 6 anchor
You do realize that video indicates that the weather is not too bad?
Light blowing snow usually means higher temperatures. Oh okay, you get white-outs if you are dumb enough to drive and a few huge snow drifts but snow is not so bad.
A the perils of the first sub-zero cold snap!
Piffle ,the Doc is nesh (as we say in certain parts of GB ).
OK, it is freakin’ cold. However, this presents an opportunity: Go outside, especially if the sun is shining brightly and blow bubbles. The soap solution will freeze, giving rise to longer lasting bubbles floating away in the sunlight as well as some really weird and wonderful behaviors when the bubbles pop. Bundle up and have fun!
I have to agree with Bruce Fuentes, a garage is the thing. It’s 15F outside this morning, but our garage is 40F. When I lived in Ohio I had to park my car on the street. Some winter days the temp hovered around 5F and I had to scrape the windows in the dark and wait 10 minutes for the engine to warm up enough to drive to work. I just love that garage!