The skies opened and dumped about 10 inches of snow on Western New York. Some localities got more, some a little less.
Now, we’re facing Arctic temperatures today: 12 degrees (windchill temp -1). Winter is starting early! How’s the weather where you are?
We got about 7.5 inches here-Detroit suburbs. Temps are supposed to drop to about 5 degrees with a high today in the mid 20’s. This is very early for us.
Steve, same here. This snow and the Arctic temps are more like January weather than November weather.
Same in hopkinton
Here on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, we had our first hard freeze of the year, meaning overnight temperatures fell to 26 degrees and local news remind us to “Protect the four P’s: people, pets, plants, and pipes.” The rest of the week will be cold but no further sub-freezing temps. I hope it warms up a little for next week—we have a Special Olympics event scheduled and it will be outside.
Deb, it looks like a large part of the U.S. faces frozen temps…in anticipation of FROZEN 2!
t’s cold, but – thankfully – nowhere near what you are getting. Yesterday the temps dropped from 57 at 7 am to 26 by 11 pm! Plus, the winds were really blowing. On the good side, however, their “all day rain ending as snow” was a total miscall, as it barely rained for a few hours (less than a tenth of an inch) and the snow was no more than a few falling flakes that never reached the ground. Even colder today (we’re staying in), but it is supposed to warm up somewhat Friday and again later next week.
All hail Big Orange!
PS – The same week last year, New York was unprepared for what turned out to be a quick six inch snowfall, but we missed it completely as we were in New Orleans!
Jeff, Big Orange fired up on the first pull! What a welcome sound when facing 10 inches of snow in the driveway!
One of the guys at the Pool told me he bought a new snowblower. Yesterday, he used it for the first time…and found out it had to push it! Most snowblowers are self-propelled, but this guy bought one of the few that wasn’t. Today, he’s buying a new, self-propelled, snowblower.
“Ten inches? Ptah! I can handle that with one blade behind my back,” said Big Orange.
Jerry, Big Orange’s clearing width is 18 inches so it handed the 10 inches of snow with ease.
What Steve said. It was 8 degrees when I got up. My snow plowing doesn’t start until Dec 1 so I waited all day for some kids to show up. They did at 9 pm. They had shoveled out 40 people. Today I order ice grips for my boots. It is very difficult to be on my own in this sort of weather. I may have to look into condo life.
Patti, two of our friends just moved from their ranch-style house to a condo for that very reason: no maintenance. The snowplowing, grass cutting, window washing, etc. are all covered by the Condo Association.
Wow!
12 degrees Fahrenheit corresponds to around -11 Celsius, we usually get that after Xmas only.
And 10 inches i e 25 cm of snow – no one here has a snowplow like your big orange, we do it all by shoveling.
My sister told me that in Munich they had a few mm of snow – here in Hungary we have only rain, rain, rain …
But we can’t complain – until the end of October it was sunny and not too cold so we took care of all our plants and flowers, put those that can’t stand the cold into our spare garage and some old ones on the compost heap.
So what happens to the Niagara Falls now, do they freeze already?
You might remember that this is still one of our favourite memories – watching the Frozen Falls from our hotel room, nice and warm with that fake gas fired chimney. 🙂
PS:
My sister has a flat roof with solar panels on top so when they had a lot of snow last winter like you have now and it stayed cold her husband and their son had to clean the snow from the roof. They were afraid of the weight bringing the house down …
This happened a few years ago to the roof of an ice rink – sveral people were killed or wounded when the whole roof came down. They had around a meter of icy snow, not very common here.
Good luck to everybody, hope you manage this weather well!
Wolf, when I turned 60 my doctor told me: “Do not shovel snow.” Every time we get a snow event like this one with multiple inches of snow, the local TV news always has a story about some guy who had a heart attack while shoveling snow. When we get feet of snow–usually in January and February–plenty of roofs collapse from the weight. Friends of ours have “snow brushes” that help clear their roofs from heavy snow.
Totally OT but related.
Lonely planet just published a list of the 10 places to travel with “best value”. I started looking for Budapest which is No 2 (totally agree with this) and then to my astonishment in forth place:
Buffalo!!!
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/best-in-travel/value
Of course the nearness to Niagara Falls plays a role – but I hadn’t thought that the city was so beautiful and interesting.
Wolf, Buffalo has plenty of lovely architecture include the Darwin-Martin House which was designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright. Awesome! And, of course, world-class pizza and chicken wings!
“And it ain’t a fit night out for man nor beast.”
Dan, when the temps and windchills are in the single-digit (or minus!) range, we just hunker down.
Zero degrees Fahrenheit – that’s almost minus 20 Celsius, well we had that too -several times several years ago in Germany and also in Hungary. I have some funny stories there:
Here on the Balaton Lake which is very shallow, less than two meters almost everywhere, some young rich spoilt Hungarians wanted to show off and drove their Hummers onto the ice. After dancing round with the cars suddenly the ice broke and two Hummers where in water up to the windscreen …
Pictures of this appeared everywhere and (almost) everybody had a good laugh.
PS:
How cold must it have been 10 years ago for the Falls to freeze almost totally?
Maybe you told me already, george – but I forgot.
I heard from a friend in Connecticut last winter that she had no electricity several times, once a tree fell because of the snow’s weight – and the technicians couldn’t get to her place because of the snow.
Do you also have that risk and do you have a generator for this?
Wolf, we’ve had most of the trees near our house taken down. We just left the Japanese Maple (which my wife loves) and trees farther away in our back yard. Yes, we have a Generac natural gas generator. The only time that there was total freezing of both the Falls and Niagara River was back on March 29, 1848. On that day, there was an ice jam on the river that made it possible for complete freezing. Aside from that, the Falls have partially frozen a few times in the 1900s (such as 1906 and 1911) as well as the 2000s such as 2014, 2017, and most recently in 2019.
Today same as yesterday: high of 58, clear, sunny, no wind. It was 43 when we got up this morning. Our thing is we need rain!. We’re already below average on rain and snow pack, and that’s there our water comes from.
Rick, we had a rainy Fall and now we have 10 inches of snow on top of it. Water is not our problem right now.
Sunny and highs around 70 in Northern California. And still no rain yet, so if another “wind event” happens, it will be another round of wildfires and power outages. I’ve been fortunate so far that the nearest power outages were a mile or so away. Many of my friends out here, not so lucky.
Art, Patrick in San Jose has been spared. But, as you say, friends in the Bay Area and Napa have not.
And the Seneca C@sino!
They wouldn’t let me use the “C” word.
Jeff, the Seneca Casino will be hopping tonight! Bad weather brings out the gamblers!
We almost went to this C@sino on our way to Niagara Falls but since we had got a very cheap room on the Canadian side it wasn’t necessary.
A bit OT:
Are there any dry counties/cities in upstate NY?
Wolf, all the counties in New York State allow alcohol. However, there are 37 towns, also mostly small and rural, that are partially dry.
Interesting. George must have it on his no-no list, as it works fine in my WordPress blog.
Rick, I’m convinced WORDPRESS has a mind of its own. I have no NO-NO list.
Wet and overcast today but mostly it has been sunny and cool around here! And in sports, the Seattle Sounders won the soccer championship! I think that’s some kind of competitive event where the guys wear short pants!
Bob, with the fear of concussions, many parents here encourage their kids to play soccer instead of youth football. The NFL should be concerned about the Future of their sport.
My wife’s sister just told us that her son (prof in Nashville) said that it was also extremely cold there right now – one of his sons had to park his car outside and wasn’t very happy.
So it must be a really big cold wave – now we’re waiting for it to arrive here.
Just in case I brought some firewood into the house to be prepard …
Wolf, we have a current temperature of 32 degrees (windchill temperature 21 degrees). Yes, that’s cold.
We are supposedly getting up to 10 in. of snow today! I felt inclined to look at what that meant.
Sharron, this should give you a good idea! Be careful shoveling!