Storm of a Generation

  Beginning on the evening of Thursday, 12/22/22, we experienced a cold front like few before ... maybe none. We had a pleasant high of 44° that day but by mid-evening  (7:30 PM) the front began to plow through the Miami  Valley with high winds and plummeting temperatures.

 I recorded a peak gust from the north during that night (now Friday 12/23) of 41.6 mph from the north at 3 AM. We were trying to sleep but it wasn't easy. The house rocked, the windows rattled and there was nowhere to escape the noisy onslaught.

 Here's a couple of graphs:

 Wide view of our barometric pressure

Detailed view of our barometric pressure

 Here's how the temperature fell  ...

Wide view of the temperature

Detailed view of our temperature

By Friday morning we were -10°. That was a 53° drop in 13 hours (43° at 7:30 PM on 12/22, -10° at 8:30 AM on 12/23).

 I remember walking home from JCPenney at the Dayton Mall in January 1978. We were trying to do inventory but finally got the word to vacate because of a blizzard. I walked home with another fellow  who lived in an apartment on Heinke Road. I remember walking down the middle of  725. How we managed that I have no idea. Did I have boots? Did the temperature drop this quickly? At that time I lived on 11th Street in Miamisburg  and was sure glad to get back home.

 Here's how our driveway apron looked the morning of 12/23. There was a drift formed to the east of Tom's Prius. In fact, I set the camera to record a frame every 30 seconds for 12 hours beginning at 7 PM on 12/22. Here is how the storm progressed that night.

 It's interesting to watch the drift form and even move back and forth a bit.

 By morning we had the hot water for the first floor bathroom freeze. I added a small space heater  and the line thawed without too much trouble.  Later that day it froze again. This time it took a while to apply enough heat to get it flowing.

 When Tom got home Friday evening (from feeding his cats), he wasn't able to get his car back onto the apron and settled for leaving the car parked in the driveway. The drifts (they extended from the garage apron to the west and surrounded my precipitation gauge to a depth of about three feet).

 By Saturday morning we heard a tractor nearby and I looked out the kitchen window and saw DR Coffman in his John Deere plowing us out.

The green lines are because  the camera detected motion.

Late afternoon on Saturday (12/24) Tom went upstairs to take a shower and found  the hot water frozen. Not a drip! I went out to the enclosed porch  and removed more panels and set up the kerosene heater there to really warm the porch. It took about  three hours of work to get the pipe open.

 On Sunday  (Christmas Day, 12/25/22) the sun rose in a clear sky. The sunlight was certainly welcome. By 11:15 AM (currently) the temperature has risen to +8°. We're expecting a  high near 15°.

 

Christmas 2022 - North view

Christmas 2022 - South view

 It's been a very stressful three days. On the bright side we never lost power longer than a brief interruption on Thursday (a second or two). Yesterday the power company sent an email asking that we try to conserve power, that the grid was taxed to its limit. I kept lights to a minimum but I needed  my space heaters and furnace to keep the pipes from freezing. I wasn't able to make any substantial change.

 Speaking of the HVAC, when I woke up on Thursday morning amid the screaming winds the first floor was at 60°. The thermostat was set to 66. I've never seen it so unable to keep up with the winter weather.

 Dave (our furnace guy) asked me to measure the temperature of the outlet. I found it to be 101° after 15 minutes without the Emergency setting being manually selected; it was 103° after another15 minutes with Emergency selected. I believe the unit selects resistive backup heat  (i.e. "Emergency") without any selection needing to be made. A snowflake icon on the thermostat blinks when resistive heat is being added. I remember our installer telling me it was completely automatic and I wouldn't have to do anything.

 The second  floor HVAC also produced air at 103° and it was always able to keep the room temperature at 66°. It cycled normally and was off for long periods. That indicates something isn't working so well with the first floor heat pump.  I called Dave and he will come as needed next week.

We're just beginning to come out of this Polar Vortex but it will be another day before I'll feel comfortable turning off supplemental heat (three electric space heaters). Tomorrow the high is forecast to be 26° and by Thu/Fri/Sat are forecast to have highs of 55/57/60. So a respite is near.

The Earth Turns ...

  Consider this picture ...

And now go back a year (12/23/21) when I was walking along this same path and at a similar time. Click here for that view.

Though the date of the picture  above  (12/01/22) was taken over three weeks earlier, the time was almost certainly different. And my location in the lane certainly  varied. On the 23rd, I can guarantee  the picture will be the same as the one I took a year ago.

 In a year the Earth travels 584 million miles in its orbit around the sun. And every year it arrives  at about the same spot on the same day at the same time. And yet that is not quite right because the actual orbit takes a little more than a year. The time required is 365 days 5 hours 59 minutes 16 seconds.

 Thus the leap year is born to bring the calendar in line every four years.

 But it always amazes me that things are relatively close and that I can count on what will happen in a year  or what  happened ten years ago. We are living in a very orderly universe. We can count on celestial matters.