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This morning we had some real poo poo weather, I remembered this discussion and snapped a photo (90% of my commute is just straight driving like this, just forest and no street lights, maybe deer or moose on the way to say hello)  This is some of the worst weather. Snowfall during the night, the temperature is above freezing and no plough trucks yet (I met one going the other way). So on one hand you got bare asphalt, but there are snow drifts between the tire tracks and if you hit them in the wrong way, they want to drag your car sideways, like into the ditch. This weather is far worse than a frozen ice road at -25C
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Dec 31, 2020 09:50
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 13:49 |
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His Divine Shadow posted:Yes when it gets real cold here, not even salt will keep it off and the road gets a layer of compacted snow, not quite ice IMO. I like it to be honest, my ideal winter driving conditions. The roads are graveled instead and the car is nice and clean and traction with winter tyres is just fine. I mostly drive on country roads and not in cities, where I think they salt until everything melts.
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Dec 31, 2020 16:02
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Dunno what to tell you then, pretty common road condition here.
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Dec 31, 2020 16:28
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Drive slowly and almost exactly like you're driving a boat. No sudden movements because if you try it won't matter. Though I did do some donuts and whatnot in the middle of the first blizzard I had to drive in. No one was in the whole parking lot and I kept it blew 10 MPH but it was still surprising how the car reacted under sudden jerks of the wheel or sudden braking under ice. Have a pair of gloves in your car or in your coat pocket or something at all times. I usually get a pack of cheap gloves during fall just to be sure I have some around. Also make sure you have a pair of shoes that are warm and waterproof for snow. All of my shoes were sandals or non-waterproof sneakers (chucks suuuuck in snow so bad for so many reasons.)
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Dec 31, 2020 17:48
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It's been asked/mentioned a few times in a passing way but Pennsylvania is, like, three different countries, weather-wise. I assume you're moving to the Philly area (where 2/3 of PA's population is) and winter is comparatively not that bad there (or in Harrisburg/Hershey/York/Lancaster, east of the Appalachians and south of the Poconos). It will still blow you away as a lifelong Floridian, but it's really mild compared to what you'll get if you're in Pittsburgh (or, gods help you, Erie). Northeast PA gets a lot more snow than southeast PA. If you're actually going west of the Appalachians be aware seasonal depression is worst out there--it's colder, snowier, but worst of all, it's cloudy all the goddamn time. New tip to add to the pile: Four-wheel drive will help you get moving on packed snow. It is NOT an enchanted item that provides immunity to ice. Don't be that moron driving 50 MPH in freezing rain because "I have four wheel drive!" But the best advice of all is, if it snows more than 5 inches and especially if there's freezing rain, don't drive for a day. Plan ahead so you won't have to. Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Jan 1, 2021 |
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Jan 1, 2021 03:25
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Brotein_Shake posted:What are the stupid cold weather house chores I need to care about? Shoveling snow? Typically the longer snow sits, the harder it becomes and much more difficult to remove. Fresh powdery snow isn't so had to move. Fresh wet heavy snow is straightforward but exhausting. Day old icy, crusty snow is nearly impossible without a mid-30 degree or higher thaw. (Few forecasts make me physically shudder than "5-6 inches of snow followed by freezing rain showers and below freezing temperatures") So yes, shovel/plow/snowblow your driveway and walks early and often. Even make paths for non common targets like your compost pile or if you use heating oil, the input pipes. And gently caress, you're tired from spending the last hour doing that? DON'T FORGET YOUR CAR. Brush it off, shovel the snow away from it, pull up your wipers so they don't freeze onto your windshield. (Also pull up your blades after travelling on below freezing days.) In addition to a good shovel make sure that your outdoor attire includes snow pants and several pairs of mittens or gloves; the former tends to dry sooner than the latter.
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Jan 4, 2021 01:42
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Find an outdoors store and invest in good, proper base layers. A good set will set you back about $120 but you won't freeze the blood in your veins on a cold morning.
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Jan 5, 2021 04:34
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You're not going to like it because Winter weather sucks. The freezing rear end cold sucks. The snow is neat at first but then it sucks. Ice sucks. Slush sucks. Putting on and taking off layers constantly sucks. Your nose running all over your face sucks. Waiting for a car to warm up sucks. I could go on. If you just go into it knowing it's going to suck you'll be fine, good luck 
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Jan 5, 2021 15:27
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Eric the Mauve posted:It's been asked/mentioned a few times in a passing way but Pennsylvania is, like, three different countries, weather-wise. I assume you're moving to the Philly area (where 2/3 of PA's population is) and winter is comparatively not that bad there (or in Harrisburg/Hershey/York/Lancaster, east of the Appalachians and south of the Poconos). It will still blow you away as a lifelong Floridian, but it's really mild compared to what you'll get if you're in Pittsburgh (or, gods help you, Erie). Northeast PA gets a lot more snow than southeast PA. It's funny, I grew up in Pittsburgh and live in the Philly area, and I wouldn't say Philly is "really mild" in comparison to Pittsburgh, especially snow wise, but apparently Philly gets 13" or so versus Pittsburgh getting 27" on average. I guess it's all your frame of reference: I've also lived in Boston and Madison, WI, so Philly/Pittsburgh are pretty much a wash for me 
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Jan 5, 2021 16:23
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I also grew up in Pennsyltucky and now live in the Philly area and the difference is definitely stark to me. So yeah probably living way further north skewed your perspective a bit It depends on how long you've lived at each place too, because especially in southeast PA that 27" per-year average is comprised of some years of basically 0 and some years of 50+. Climate and topography's effect on it is really fascinating (e.g. Monaco is closer to the North Pole than Buffalo, and so forth). Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Jan 5, 2021 |
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Jan 5, 2021 16:32
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yeah it's pretty much all perspective and there's always some jerk from a colder snowier place once the "is it really cold and snowy here" game starts (its me)
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Jan 5, 2021 16:52
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Eric the Mauve posted:I also grew up in Pennsyltucky and now live in the Philly area and the difference is definitely stark to me. So yeah probably living way further north skewed your perspective a bit having lived in both pittsburgh and nyc (which has p much the same weather as philly) there's also the fact pittsburgh is quite hilly compared to the flat coastal cities so ice on the road becomes even more of a problem and also the city was just really bad at plowing/salting/etc when i lived there which is more of a government/funding/infrastructure issue than weather per se but it was definitely a noticeable difference. that was decades ago though
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Jan 5, 2021 18:13
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Applebees Appetizer posted:You're not going to like it because Winter weather sucks. The freezing rear end cold sucks. The snow is neat at first but then it sucks. Ice sucks. Slush sucks. Putting on and taking off layers constantly sucks. Your nose running all over your face sucks. Waiting for a car to warm up sucks. I could go on.
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Jan 5, 2021 20:27
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In one of my past lives I was a game charter working at minor league baseball games in western Pennsylvania. At one game there was a snow delay. It didn't lay much but it snowed giant golf ball sized flakes for about a half hour and trying to play baseball in those conditions is hopeless. I was standing under a heat lamp during the delay with two of the home team's pitchers who had been assigned to chart the game from the stands that day. They were staring out at the snowstorm like it was the surface of the moon. They grew up in Arizona and had spent their pro careers to date in Florida; it was the first time they had ever seen snow. This happened a few days before Memorial Day.
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Jan 5, 2021 21:08
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Dik Hz posted:For me, the worst part of living somewhere really cold/snowy (please note, I love living such places) is the early spring. You'll get a nice thaw in March and you'll get all optimistic. And then you get two more months of gray and slush and cold. Next thing you know it's the fishing opener in May and you're chipping ice out of the minnow bucket in a futile endeavor because walleyes don't bite during a spring cold front. And you just want it to stay in the 50s during the day. I grew up in Wisconsin, then lived in Florida for 15 years then moved to Buffalo for two years then back to Florida. I thought I was prepared for Buffalo cuz I grew up in the north, so I fully expected it to suck but it still surprised me. Lake effect snow sure is something.
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Jan 5, 2021 22:59
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If you're moving to Philly (or one of the older, nearby suburbs, especially in Delco), respect the lawn chair ( or orange safety cone, or trash can). It's legal, but jumping in someone else's shoveled out parking space is a bad idea. It's a good way to get your antenna snapped off, at the very least.
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Jan 6, 2021 01:36
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Applebees Appetizer posted:I grew up in Wisconsin, then lived in Florida for 15 years then moved to Buffalo for two years then back to Florida. buffalo is truly its own joint
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Jan 6, 2021 02:44
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Scott Lame posted:If you're moving to Philly (or one of the older, nearby suburbs, especially in Delco), respect the lawn chair ( or orange safety cone, or trash can). It's legal, but jumping in someone else's shoveled out parking space is a bad idea. It's a good way to get your antenna snapped off, at the very least. As a kid we lived in the narrow streets of an old, small city. When I was about 8 my father (a truck driver) took like an hour to shovel out my mother's car from a two foot snowfall before he left at like 3:30 AM on a weeklong run, and left a couple trash cans for her to save her spot with when she went to work. When she got back from work (after picking us kids up from grandma's) she found someone had moved the trash cans and taken the spot. (She knew the neighbors' cars and it wasn't any of theirs.) We had to park in a church lot like 3 blocks away and walk back home in the snow/ice. She told us to stay inside, went down to the basement, lugged up a 5 gallon bucket half full of used motor oil my dad had stashed down there, and dumped it all over the windshield and back window of the car. That was almost 30 years ago and she still gets pissed if I bring it up. She says the rear end in a top hat was lucky he locked all four doors and also that she couldn't find any paint. I remember being afraid whoever's car it was would smash down our door (it was right in front of our house) and try to kill us but after sitting there all evening the car was gone the next morning and we never found out who it was. I also know a guy that has a plow on his pickup truck who a couple years ago someone moved his traffic barrels (and those fuckers are heavy so that took some effort) and took the space he'd plowed out for his wife, and when she called him and told him about it he left work early and spent an hour gathering snow from everywhere and burying the car. So, uh, don't do that. People get very pissed off. Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Jan 6, 2021 |
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Jan 6, 2021 03:55
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We live in the future, so if the cold is really a problem for you, you can buy aerogel stuff. Also, mittens make you feel like an idiot kid but are much warmer.
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Jan 6, 2021 05:16
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Eric the Mauve posted:As a kid we lived in the narrow streets of an old, small city. When I was about 8 my father (a truck driver) took like an hour to shovel out my mother's car from a two foot snowfall before he left at like 3:30 AM on a weeklong run, and left a couple trash cans for her to save her spot with when she went to work. When she got back from work (after picking us kids up from grandma's) she found someone had moved the trash cans and taken the spot. (She knew the neighbors' cars and it wasn't any of theirs.) We had to park in a church lot like 3 blocks away and walk back home in the snow/ice. She told us to stay inside, went down to the basement, lugged up a 5 gallon bucket half full of used motor oil my dad had stashed down there, and dumped it all over the windshield and back window of the car. That was almost 30 years ago and she still gets pissed if I bring it up. She says the rear end in a top hat was lucky he locked all four doors and also that she couldn't find any paint. I've had that happen to me. Someone just stole my parking spot once at my apartment complex. Pissed me off even more because I paid extra for that spot and it had an outlet so I could use the block heater for my car. Man it ignites such a loving fury in you. But all I did was leave a nasty message on the windshield. Fortunately where I now live I don't have to worry about that. Anyway winter sucks in a lot of ways, but last night we had -16C and the sun was out (while the day lasted) and everything was just so nice looking. Crisp and clean. The lake is freezing over properly now and you can go ice fishing and skiing or just exploring and hiking over to the islands. 
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Jan 7, 2021 10:59
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People have omitted one super necessary preparation. In your grocery store run before a snowstorm, get your favorite kind of juice, so you can make your own snowcone with the fresh clean snow
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Jan 9, 2021 04:24
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i like nice words
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Anne Whateley posted:People have omitted one super necessary preparation. In your grocery store run before a snowstorm, get your favorite kind of juice, so you can make your own snowcone with the fresh clean snow Don't forget unreasonable quantities of bread and eggs for unknown reasons. Like others have said, if you're moving to the Philadelphia area, don't overthink it. It never gets dangerously cold and the city mostly shuts down when there's a major blizzard. The entire winter tends to be slushy and grey, but life goes on. Roads in urban and suburban areas will be plowed and salted unless there's a surprise morning storm. The main thing you notice compared to winter in the south is that being outside for a few months a year is just uncomfortable.
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Jan 9, 2021 10:00
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Get the cooling system on your car flushed. Might as well do it before you go. If you only used the heater in your car "like that one time 3 years ago", then there might be poo poo in your heater core built up or it may otherwise not be functioning. Tell the mechanic that you're moving and need a mix thats better for cold. Don't believe them if they tell you "ah hadda git ya the winnter coolant" and try to charge you 3 times as much. Coolant is coolant. They just dilute it more or less to get better resistance to freezing. 50/50 is usually good down to -40 or so. Also, get new windshield wiper blades. "Winter" blades DO exist. They just might not exist in the land of Florida man. Someone already mentioned "winter" washer fluid, so get that poo poo too. Also someone mentioned that just because you got fore weel dryve in your vehicle, it don't mean poo poo. It can help get you moving, but when you ram the brake pedal to the floor, all drive wheel types become equal. And the winners are the ones with tires that actually have grip. E: Also look in to Rust proofing your car.
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Jan 12, 2021 00:28
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I've never yet seen "rustproofing" that actually works against the relentless onslaught of salt
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Jan 12, 2021 01:20
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Only regular maintenance does the trick. But I gotta say I cheated with my toyota yaris, only had a proper treatment done in 2011 at a mechanics. I opted for a much cheaper old fashioned method that uses oil, I wonder if it's literally old engine oil or some poo poo. Makes the car real drippy and dirty at first as that oil gets everywhere, and that's partially what reates the rust protection, all that oil which gets everywhere, and then dust and crud kicked up from the road forms an oily solid barrier that lasts for a very long time. My car is almost new looking under, except in a few spots where I should do some touch-ups. Fortunately the real winter is finally here now and salting the roads is like pissing in the wind so they've stopped trying, just ploughing and occasionally laying out sand or gravel and it's like I described earlier, a hard white surface that's pleasant to drive across. Traction with studded tires is just fine.
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Jan 12, 2021 07:50
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His Divine Shadow posted:Only regular maintenance does the trick. But I gotta say I cheated with my toyota yaris, only had a proper treatment done in 2011 at a mechanics. I opted for a much cheaper old fashioned method that uses oil, I wonder if it's literally old engine oil or some poo poo. Bar and chain oil is the traditional choice of the redneck backwoods shop mechanic. Fluid film is the popular off the shelf stuff, and then the more expensive way is stuff with fibers in it that theoretically helps it stick to the steel better. My last truck I had the latter (shop used something called woolwax) applied annually, and it preserved the frame very well, even for an old vehicle in significant salt. Actually, what sort of proved to me it worked well is that I never thought to take the spare tire off when I had it coated, and one day a couple years ago I took it off for unrelated reasons and discovered the frame cross member it mounted to was almost completely gone right above where the wheel blocked access to it. So now that I have a replacement truck, I have been sure to pull the spare off when I get it undercoated.
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Jan 19, 2021 00:29
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 13:49 |
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https://www.nokiantires.com/tires/passenger-car/all-weather-tires/. Expensive but you don't have to change them every fall/spring and aren't bad in the snow. Definitely get a humidifier.
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Jan 21, 2021 08:40
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