What a crazy day I’ve had. I was highly convinced we’d lose power, and expected to wake up not having power.
This storm has been talked out for a week. First it started with trying to figure out its
track, then it’s about just how much ice we would get. Was told to “not look at the totals as that’s sensationalism”– aka other people showing ridiculously high totals that only confuse people. This always happen after every storm, and it definitely needs to be stopped. It’s not accurate. All it causes is fear for no reason. If you want facts, you don’t rely on a 3rd party weatherman. You rely on weathermen who actually went to collage for years and know how to read models, and know the NAM is often BS when it comes to predicting winter weather (as it’s usually wrong).
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So, a few days away until the storm moved in. Would start off as rain Wednesday, then transition to ice Thursday morning.. with a perlonged ice event (why we were under an Ice Storm Warning). They said it shouldn’t be to the levels of the 2009 ice storm, but it could be close in some areas.. and the areas in question, we were in that band.
I felt we should get our food from the fridge into the freezer outside, to protect it once our power went out. Again, I felt it was a guarantee, because they predicted up to .75 of Ice. That’s a lot! That, is a CRIPPLING Ice Storm. My mother had her doubts it would even happen. She wanted to be in denial and pretend everything was fine, to protect her precious cat. You don’t know just how annoying it feels, when she refuses to listen to facts.
Wednesday Afternoon and evening, it rained and rained. Luckily we didn’t really get the flooding rain they were worried about. Was mostly light. Anyway, I planned to
launch ‘Operation: Food Freeze’ by the time I go to bed. The plan went into affect as two stages;
Stage 1: Get everything in bags and shove them all in the freezer. I realized freezer burn might happen for refrigerated food, but I rather have that than spoiled food.
Stage 2: Cokes and stuff like that, put it in a cooler and throw ice in it, then put it outside. The cold temps would keep the ice from melting, keeping my drinks safe.
Went to bed when it was done. As I said I expected to wake up and see the power out. Instead it was hovering at 33F for three hours. It’s like, most of the ice was missing us. And then when we got into the ice, it turned into an ice/sleet mixture (which even more lessened ice secretion) and the risk of power outages. Still, I kept with the plan for ‘just incase’ I was right.
2pm, nothing. 3pm, nothing. 4pm, nothing. It was at 4pm when my mother claimed one of the local news channels said “light freezing rain = good”. Yet the one I was following, said the exact opposite (because of the runoff). Light freezing rain gives it more time to freeze and do damage, and she does her “I don’t know” line when she refuses to understand something.
It was almost 6pm. The news channel I was following said it was soon going to become all sleet and this would lessen out ice risk even more. Mother however claimed we were going to get all snow, and we had another argument over two channels doing two different forecasts. Finally the truth came out that she saw it wrong…though, she also said they worry about tomorrow night into Saturday morning. Though it won’t be from what falls from the sky, it’s the brutal temperatures with this arctic high pressure aka what’s called
a “displacement in the polar vortex” they’re concerned with. We’re going to hit 0F to 10F(as an air temp.. not wind chill) at night. That is very, VERY cold. And the windchill will be even worse.
What they’re concerned with, is the power lines could snap like a toothpick with that kind of air temperature.
Night was coming, so I decided to turn everything back on and ate dinner. 8pm came and they were showing a transition to snow, and felt “alright, threat is gone”. Turned on my fridge and brought everything in. Now I stupidly wasn’t wearing gloves when I should had and I pray I didn’t get a small bit of frostbite on the fingerprint part of my left ring
finger.
There’s a small pen-sized hole on my finger, but there’s also a small bit of discoloring near it. Though, it doesn’t feel numb or cold. It just stings a little from the pen-shaped hole. So I believe I’ll be OK. Definitely taught me a lesson to always use gloves while working outside.
Think I accidentally cut myself on the ice. I wasn’t really out that long to get frostbite. And my body temp wouldn’t really allow that to happen. Plus, why only on one finger? I had both of my hands going to do this, and that’s the only spot? Hell, could be just frostbit, and I read it’s not really anything to worry about.
I slightly worry more if we don’t get enough melting of the ice on the lines during the day. The temp is supposed to get close to 30F, then drop down at night. Hopefully that 30F will give time to get the ice off the lines (around here at least).