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“Region struggles from weather it’s not used to”. That’s enough news for me.
by mrfusion 6y ago
“Region struggles from weather it’s not used to”. That’s enough news for me.
- spacemanmatt 6y agoCare to confirm my pet theory that you have working utilities and food at this time?
- rbanffy 6y agoWe'll have a whole lot more of that this century...
- ptcrash 6y agoYeah, that's a good distillation of what's going on. I think people have severely looked over just how significant this weather was and why it was really reasonable for engineers to not anticipate this situation. What we really need to be reminded of is that this was caused by global warming stifling the typical northern jetstream. As long as global warming stays a problem, we will need to anticipate these types of extremes across the entire US.
- makomk 6y agoI think it's more like the mainstream media downplayed just how significant and unusual this weather was for nakedly partisan reasons - specifically, to feed a bogus narrative that this happens every decade and Texas just doesn't fix the problem because they're a bunch of right-wing anti-government morons. It's hard to overstate just how awful and corrosive the current state of the US media is. I've seen people elsewhere insisting that their Texan acquaintances must've been brainwashed because they think this was a once in a lifetime occurrence. (Which it was.)
- bluGill 6y agoThis might be once in a lifetime, but it isn't that far off from normal extreems
- selimthegrim 6y agoI think the median poster on HN was alive in 1989.
- mannykannot 6y agoNo-one should be surprised by a once-in-a-lifetime event. These are, by definition, not so rare that it is rational to ignore them.
- barbacoa 6y agoEvery region prepares for what they are likely to face. Florida prepares for hurricanes, California prepares for earthquakes. If a hurricane hit California, or a large earthquake hit Florida very bad things would happen. Likewise the average in February high/low temperature for Austin TX is 65/45 F. They had no reason to prepare for a prolonged deep freeze that dipped as low as single digits. ...That is until it happened.
- bluGill 6y agoYour average is correct but the wrong metric. Austin has several times in the recient past got this cold, or so close as to be in any reasonable margin of error. When planning you need to ask about the expected range not average.
- barbacoa 6y agoLast time Austin got down to these temperatures was 1989. https://www.currentresults.com/Yearly-Weather/USA/TX/Austin/extreme-annual-austin-low-temperature.php https://www.currentresults.com/Yearly-Weather/USA/TX/Austin/...
- davidgay 6y agoAnd one shouldn't plan one's long-lasting infrastructure for 30y events?
- spacemanmatt 6y agoThe last time winter shut down our power grid was 2011, and many of us called for ERCOT to be properly regulated then.