Hunkered down for the storm

[wolc123]

My wife and I and both of our girls are in the house.  I just implemented a driving ban for all members of the household.  
 

I have (2) full cans of gas in the barn, and the tanks on my gas tractor and the generator in there are almost full.  I just checked the oil on our 7500/5000 watt portable generator, started it for a while, and load tested it.  
 

The tank on my diesel tractor is also almost full ,and I picked up another 6 gallons of that last night, while I was getting gas.  I just finished stacking a half cord of firewood on the porch, just outside of where the wood stove is in the house.  
 

Nobody has any travel plans until Church, a mile up the road, at 9:30 Christmas morning.  Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow .  
 

[First-light]

We have a lot of wind and rain on L.I. I closed down the house in Howard when I left on Wednesday. Other than the power going out I should be ok. Good luck all. 

[suburbanfarmer]

Same here..windy and cold but ready

Gas cans & Vehicle tanks full. Chainsaws ready 
 

Lets hope we dont lose power and internet otherwise the kids will drive me crazy..lol

[luberhill]

I’m hoping it doesn’t get any worse ..

its really not THAT bad , 25 Degs and lite snow , heavy wind ..

Power just went off for 5 minutes 

Guardian generator fired right up !

Go lots of food 

[airedale]

The weather is not too bad as of now, the wind is my main concern. Power went out just before midnight, still has not come on. I have my generator humming along, it powers all the house essentials,  the cookstove stoked with coal, she heats the house for the most part and may have to roast my Christmas eve get together Turkey.

Al

[Daveboone]

Here...normal Tug Hill. Wind, some snow, only what we typically expect. Generators are topped off and extension cords in easy reach, plenty of food, booze etc. Everything is charged. whatever. Used to be a time we just called this a winter weather advisory. 

[Four Seasons]

We are getting smoked pretty good up here in Evans Mills area. 40 plus winds and snow coming like crazy is making travel all but impossible. But of course the roads still have those ones that believe they can do it and cars off the roads all over. Military folks seem to have to learn the hard lesson rather than listening to the weatherman and their own eyes. 

[Nytracker]

42 degrees  this morning at 4:30 am . Walked out of work to pretty stiff wind  and 9 degrees at 3 pm. Roads weren't that bad on the drive home . People driving way to fast for the conditions as usual .Wind is really whipping now..  I'm home for the night . Told the wife I will get up and drive her to work in the morning .  I'm off work for the next 9 days. 

[fasteddie]

It's 8 degrees here in Ontario right now . The wind has subsided quite a bit . So glad I have a whole house generator in case anything happens . 

[sbuff]

Is that a fox shotgun above fireplace ?

[wolc123]

2 hours ago, sbuff said:

Is that a fox shotgun above fireplace ?

No, it’s my granddad’s old Ithaca 12 ga. I think it was made in the early 1920’s. I never killed anything with it, but I did use it for many rounds of trap.  Back when I shot on a league, we would have side-by-side matches a few times each season.  

The main spring broke on it during one of those, about 15 years ago, and it has been a mantle piece since then.  
 

 

[suburbanfarmer]

Never got any amount of snow that needed shoveling where I am ..

Lots of wind and cold for sure.

[wolc123]

2 minutes ago, suburbanfarmer said:

Never got any amount of snow that needed shoveling where I am ..

Lots of wind and cold for sure.

We also got very little overnight, up on the nw corner of wmu 9F (maybe 12”), but lots of blowing and drifting.  I just swept off the porch, to make it a little easier to grab firewood. My parents got a little less, down in the sw corner of WMU 9F.  They delayed our usual extended family Christmas party, until January 8.   
 

Our pastor just texted that church services are canceled for today and tomorrow.  I was going to get out on the tractor and clear snow so we could get out, early tomorrow morning when the “blizzard” is supposed to end, but now I can stay in the house with the wife and kids opening Christmas and birthday presents.  
 

We have not lost power at all so far.  I just pulled my last chunk of venison liver out of the freezer.  I plan over frying that up with onions for birthday lunch tomorrow.   I’ll take my time after lunch (after the wind let’s up), and get our driveways and our neighbor’s cleared with my tractor. 

[mlammerhirt]

Not too bad here in Hamburg(Lakeview)....just extreme winds and freezing cold temps. Guess this is the lull before the next major round a little later this afternoon.

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[greg54]

It has been like this all day in Eastern Niagara County.

[Nytracker]

Not much snow down here cold . Wind is brutal. What was there is drifting pretty good acrossed the drive way. Got to a balmy 9 degrees here.

[Pygmy]

It was 5 degrees according to my truck thermometer on my way home from the Legion This afternoon...I had to hit the brakes to avoid three penguins and a polar bear...

[wolc123]

11 minutes ago, Pygmy said:

It was 5 degrees according to my truck thermometer on my way home from the Legion This afternoon...I had to hit the brakes to avoid three penguins and a polar bear...

That’s not bad.  My cousin, who lives a little south of Atlanta GA, called me and said that it was 3 degrees down there earlier today.  They don’t have any snow though. 
 

My aunt, who lives next door to me, is down visiting him for Christmas.  She was wondering if we lost power during the blizzard up here.   Fortunately, we did not loose it at all yet during this storm.  
 

They put in one of those water backup sump-pumps, so hopefully they won’t need to worry about the basement flooding, if we do loose power.  Our road is the lowest in the town, so flooding can be an issue.  

[Doc]

Yesterday, I saw 3 degrees as the lowest. The wind was absolutely absurd. I expected to see trees going down. Just had the hill logged so I don't expect any problems up there. Snow looks to be something less than 1", but most of that blew away into the woods somewhere. Next spring there will be massive twig and branch pick-up in the yard.

Location: northern 8N

[wolc123]

It took me about 20 minutes to shovel out my daughter’s sonic.  That got a brand new battery in it, down in White-Plains, last week.  It worked good to jump start my tractor.  It was too cold for that to turn over fast enough on its own.

Our 4-Wd and fwd SUV’s were both trapped in the barn.  I usually jump the tractor with the Durango, but a 6 ft drift in front of the barn door stopped that. 

After I got the tractor started, it took me over an hour to dig out our two driveways and my neighbors.  The plows hit our road soon after, so we are no longer stranded.  
 

I’m not planning on going anywhere, until Tuesday morning, to hunt at my parents.    I guess I’ll be wearing my snowshoes, on my way to the stand out back tomorrow morning.  I don’t think we got much over a foot of snow, but high winds made some deep drifts.

[WNYBuckHunter]

We didn’t get much snow, and our place was protected from most of the wind by the wooded hill across the street. We lost power for 4-5 hours Friday night and then again yesterday. Had to deal with an air lock in the well system yesterday morning also. Our driveway is a giant sheet of ice. I’ve spread 250lbs of salt so far. I have the hill pretty well busted up but the top area between our house and barn is going to need more. 
 

Could be a lot worse. Stay warm everyone.

[mlammerhirt]

We got hit hard today once the snow machine started to shift south. Plowed the driveway and cleaned the truck off three times today.....not worth letting it pile up.
This snow is alot different than the November storm....much lighter due to how cold it is outside.

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[wolc123]

7 hours ago, mlammerhirt said:

We got hit hard today once the snow machine started to shift south. Plowed the driveway and cleaned the truck off three times today.....not worth letting it pile up.
This snow is alot different than the November storm....much lighter due to how cold it is outside.

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It seemed to me like a heavy snow, fine and granular.  I got stuck down in southern CA on a work trip for the November blizzard.  I was damn close to getting stuck down there again for this one, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to miss a second opening day of deer season  (Holiday ML) and Christmas and my birthday with my family.

 I flat out refused, telling my boss that I’d flip burgers before I went.  That turned out to be a good move, because there is no doubt that I would be stuck there right now.   
 

I had to shovel a fair amount on this one, in order to get my daughter’s car to my tractor to jump start it.  I guess I’m going to have to buck up for a battery with more CCA for that tractor.  

 

I did have to shovel about 3 ft of that last one off of my wife’s van, when I got back to the Buffalo airport.  It didn’t seem as heavy as this one but I had to shovel a lot less of it. 

Edited December 26, 2022 by wolc123