I've got to ask other members here, "what your are seeing for winter weather?"

 

Here in Central Idaho we've seen snow storm blow over but not drop much snow in the valley floor. The mountains around me are dusted in snow. Nothing deep once again. The temperature has dropped to 24*F above. Everything is frosted this morning and cold. Now I've talked to a friend down in the Parma area and he's had already a good 2 to 3 inches of snow but next day melted off. 

Built too light so no traction??

No way to control torque. Like in the Cummins truck we have all the cast iron block and weight in the nose to plant the steer tires in the snow. When you look at those wide tires and then the wight of the Telsa it just floating on top. Then with electric motors there is no way to gear up one to light the torque. Its just instant torque just touching the throttle on the Telsa. My 51 Willys Jeep was this way too. Horrid little rig for barely 4,000 pounds and too much power. Hence why I sold the Jeep years ago. 

Well that was a wild ride. 

 

Early Tuesday morning the power went out at 2:30am. I got up and ran around the house shutting down all the un-needed stuff like Christmas Lights and some of the night lights. Went back to bed. The crazy part was getting up that morning to finding the power lines laying in my front yard. Hike over to my neighbors house to the south and there power pole is broke off near the base. Large red fir tree broke off and fell over on the lines breaking the pole off. From this point it pull the cross bar on my pole in my yard and broke a insulator off the top of the pole. The all the slack laid in my yard. Idaho Power was asking to drive across my yard I said no because we just had 2 inches of rain days earlier and knowing the truck are heavy. I told then they could build a road at the base of my driveway to access that ground. Jim Kern our local track hoe guy helped out and dug a ramp and sloped the ground but even that was too slick for the heavy trucks so even helping out with his smallish track hoe pulls both truck on the flat. More or less had a show out my window all day. 

 

 

I did the smarty thing and sneak under the lines with my ATV and help the rest of my friends. I stopped by Goerge's place and plowed out his driveway being he loan out his little tractor. Then went the other direction and found out Mark doesn't have any heat. So I rounded up a bit of hot coffee, some left over spaghetti, propane bottle and big buddy heater. Rode down to Marks place on my ATV and got him some heat and a hot meal. 

 

Came back and was plowing driveways and work areas. I'd have guys walking over and asking questions like do I want the old pole? Needless to say it was about 18 hours without power and internet. Now be aware I've got solar/hydro power so we just shutdown what things we didn't need on and like the inverter cover the fridge and freezer in the basement. No internet, no TV, no phone calls (Cell uses WiFi), nothing, it was a peaceful day being locked at home since there was no way to get my trucks out of the yard with power lines laying in the driveway.

 

18 hours later about 7pm we got power back on. The part that sucks big is this morning its only +15*F outside as a start and the sky cleared up last night... Ugh!

 

Edited December 15, 20213 yr by Mopar1973Man

12-16-21 we hit almost 60°f in New England, specifically southern CT. A couple weeks ago we had 8 tornadoes come across northern ct and eastern mass with a cold front (nothing more than EF1) . We have been ranging from high 40s to low 50s on average. nights ranging from upper 20s to middle upper 30s. Saw snow once so far. and it didn't stick at all. Other places have had maybe an inch or so of  snow.

 

I have a feeling we are gonna repeat last year, as soon as new years hits the bottom is gonna drop out on the temps and we will actually be in winter. But white Christmas odds are still up in the air right now for us. There's a chance of an off shore storm to clip close enough to hit us with some snow.       

Just got lucky tonight a very large limb broke off the maple out back and just missed my RV roof by 2 inches. Limb is still hanging. Lost power again 3rd time this week. RV is untouched on quick look in the dark.

 

Edited December 18, 20213 yr by Mopar1973Man

Just went out to verify the RV. Roof is untouched but a smaller limb tore up the A/C housing which is really brittle plastic. No problem I can fix that up and build a sheet metal housing for over the top. Yeah I got super lucky last night. I was heading to the bathroom for restock of my medi-set (vitamins and such) and heard the boom and was instantly choked up and couldn't talk. I just knew that limb had just broke off. Wasn't sure what I was going to see. When I went out to look at it and climb on the rear of the RV it was rest just a mere 2 inches off the top of the RV and never touched the roof. I mean seriously got lucky. 

How come everytime I showed up you always said, ''park your RV over there in that spot'' ?

Umm not the same spot. The spot mine was parked is out back. It will have full hook ups this summer. 

 

Your spot is out front by the driveway and only has the electric rock 120V 15A plug.

3 hours ago, Mopar1973Man said:

Umm not the same spot. The spot mine was parked is out back. It will have full hook ups this summer. 

 

Your spot is out front by the driveway and only has the electric rock 120V 15A plug.

I was kidding with you Boss.

 

We are supposed to have a possible white Christmas. If it happens it will be the first in over 3 decades. As for the rain I would say we are caught up just fine here in NW Oregon

Close call there. You got lucky. At least now you'll have more firewood. Lol

I am currently halfway through my firewood. The extreme heat we had sure did season it well in one summer. We reached 116 degrees for the hottest day breaking all time statewide records.

 

Now we've had plenty of rainfall thus far for the season, thank God, breaking our long term dry spell and extreme fire danger drought. Now winter is finally in full swing, currently 8 inches of snow, still snowing at 27 degrees it's cold enough that I'm seeing individual snowflakes falling (very light snowfall) like little reflective pieces of glitter when turning on the light. Looks really cool, like falling stars. I must admit I have never seen this before. Don't know about you guys and I don't want any credit but conditions out west have caused me to pray very hard very sincere this early fall and I can only thank God for the wonderful mercy out west. Sorry to wax religious... until you understand what we been going thru... 

 

Keep the faith everyone and I thank you for your prayers, all of you.

Now I'm asking for it to stop so I can catch up. Still got a transmission to do in the bitter cold up here. Starting at a low of +11*F (-11.6*C). Then I've gotta pack up and head to Lucile, ID to install a thermostat in a RV so the owner can stay warm with the propane furnace. Then come back here install a water pump in a !998 Dodge V10 pickup then try to muster up the strength to finish the transmission job outside in my wood shed. (Ugh!)

 

Top it all off my winch on my ATV is shot and froze up. I need to either replace or take mine apart and see if I can repair this one. Be nice ot get the customer truck out of my shop so I can work inside out of the cold. It's so cold I watch my heater / propane bottle freeze up. Yup heater slowed way down on heat production and the propane bottle looked like a round block of dry Ice. It was freezing any moisture in the air. 

 

I even got smart last night and moved both trucks close to a building and plugged in block heaters for both. Yea I know I typically don't do that but with the hard start on Beast which I still need to do the injector o-rings. Then on Thor the warm up time with grid heaters are fairly rough and also just takes FOREVER without Mopar1973Man High Idle 3 CYL warm up which Beast has. Beast still can warm up much, much, faster than Thor. Even using exhaust brake on Thor still slow and takes forever. 

Edited December 28, 20213 yr by Mopar1973Man

It's going to stop or taper down I hope for you Mike. This morning at 10am I'm seeing above freezing and some melting going on. I want you to build a heated shop my friend. You are getting enough work that you could have a small mortgage say,  disciplined CC payments if needed, would be a good investment. Running my biz has meant borrowing many times over the years. It's always paid off even in the short term. With a good shop and good storage your really in Business and on your terms too. 

Edited December 29, 20213 yr by JAG1

Can y'all send some of the snow to New England? 

 

Wait.. maybe I shouldn't put that out into the universe, we'll have a repeat of 2011-2013.. Don't need that.

22*F out this morning and snowing really fine powder. Then getting ready at about 10am to head to Lucile to work. 

...VERY COLD TEMPERATURES EXPECTED OVER THE HOLIDAY WEEKEND... ESPECIALLY SATURDAY MORNING... Skies will clear and temperatures will become very cold late Friday night into Saturday morning. Low temperatures in the valleys are expected to be from around 5 above zero to 10 below zero, with mountains generally in the 5 below zero to 20 below zero range. Sunday will be not be as cold, but most locations will be in the 5 above to 5 below zero range in the morning. Fortunately, most winds will stay below 10 mph during the coldest periods. However, the Camas Prairie will have dangerous wind chills down to 35 below zero Saturday morning, with a significant risk of frostbite. Other areas will have lighter winds and will not be quite so cold, but even light winds can lead to frostbite at those temperatures.

 

High on Friday here is 51° above. 

Tomorrow sunny with a high of 58°F and I have to mow the lawn.  

1 hour ago, IBMobile said:

Tomorrow sunny with a high of 58°F and I have to mow the lawn.  

When a bird gets caught in the mower he calls it 'shredded tweet'. 

 

43 for the high tomorrow snow is melting off everywhere except the mountains so getting pretty much back to normal around here.

Edited December 31, 20213 yr by JAG1

 This morning, FOGGY, 43 deg, visability only about 1/4 mile. Temps are supposed to start dropping through the day, rain after about 10am, turning to snow later 2-4 inches expected.

It's been a very wet fall/winter here so far, lots of rain. The ground here is soggy. When I walk through the yard I sink in an inch and water squishes out around your boot. The ground is so saturated with water at this point when we do get rain the septic and leach field get inundated with water and stops flowing. I've had to drop a submersible pump into the septic tank just far enough to pump out the rain water to get things moving again. I hate to do it but I don't have much choice at this point. I believe I'm going to have to dig up the tile around the outer perimeter of the leach and redo it. I'm sure tree roots have gotten into the tile.