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Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place
- slillibri 9mo agoThe main lesson I learned was I didn’t have to live in a snowy place. I left SW Michigan in 2000 and haven’t looked back. I don’t like being cold, but I loathe snow and ice.
- richiezc 9mo ago+1 I grew up in CA, went to college in IL and couldn't move back fast enough!
- mattikl 9mo agoI've lived all my life in Finland, even though all through my early adulthood I was planning to move to some place much warmer. But later (especially now with children for whom the snow is so exciting) I've come to like the four seasons and the balance it gives. That article was a strange read from my perspective, because here the infrastructure is built for winters as well. I don't remember school ever being canceled due to winter conditions, traffic is only a mess after a snowstorm.
- euroderf 9mo agoYes but then in spring come the freeze-thaw cycles that make every town a skating rink. Sand & grit barely rate as halfway measures. More-aggressive snow removal and pavement scraping would help. I've been obsessed longtime about how (or, better: whether) robots could remove the ice from pavements, but I only see tech challenge after tech challenge.
- indoordin0saur 9mo ago> That article was a strange read from my perspective, because here the infrastructure is built for winters as well. I don't remember school ever being canceled due to winter conditions, traffic is only a mess after a snowstorm. Seems like the author lives in a rural area where there isn't the support to deal with heavy snow. Also, Finland has frequent snow that falls in small amounts. I'm not sure exactly where the author is, but some mountainous or lake-adjacent areas in the US and Canada the snow falls less frequently but when it does it can come very heavy, like a meter of the stuff in 48 hours is not uncommon which is more than Helsinki usually gets in an entire winter. In Buffalo, NY for example a few years back they got 2 meters in a single day.
- ozim 9mo agoI hate bugs, I specifically like late autumn/winter/early spring cold times because there are almost no bugs. I don't mind snow/ice as much.
- Tor3 9mo agoCold and dry is not a problem. You can always add more layers of clothing and get very comfortable. Warm and humid is a real problem. You can't just remove clothing until you're comfortable. And the humidity.. there's no remedy to fix that.
- wellf 9mo agoThe remedy is swim or air conditioning.
- Tor3 9mo agoSwimming (where, by the way?) or air conditioning isn't helping when walking outside.
- wellf 9mo agoYeah it is basically don't walk outside much when above 35C. Unless you are a weird person with a body that can handle a 10km run in such conditions! Not me.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- nancyminusone 9mo agoI'd rather just not live somewhere hot and humid.
- wellf 9mo agoI do live somewhere hot and humid say max 5% of days. So overall OK. I wouldn't like that to be much higher than 10%. But the trade off is mild winters and on average comfortable weather. For now. Until more climate change.
- 00N8 9mo agoGood point. I've always found high humidity makes things a lot more unpleasant unless the temperature is in a fairly narrow range around 71°F or so. It intensifies the heat of course, but IME it also makes chilly weather a lot harsher too. I get uncomfortably cold really easily when it's e.g. 51°F with a cool damp ocean breeze in places like SF or Monterey, but when I go to the mountains in winter, 25-32°F is totally comfortable -- even in literally the same clothing. I think it must be partly a psychological effect, but humidity seems to play a role too (along with other factors like IR reflection off the snow).
- wffurr 9mo agoJust before the Superbowl, the Boston Globe had an article full of interviews with New Englanders who have moved to California. One claimed to still be a New Englander but didn't miss the weather, "I haven't slipped on ice in 30 years". I had to think, are they really New Englanders if they can't handle the weather? I think that's a big part of it. Having some Patriots and Dunkin Donuts swag doesn't cut it IMO.
- N_Lens 9mo agoI think this trend of writing in the second person needs to mature into a more accurate first person account. It’s an immature human tendency to universalise one’s experience, and it takes maturity to see that situations are different from context to context. A lot of this article doesn't seem to generalize to every snowy place on the planet.
- brettgriffin 9mo agoPut winter tires on your vehicles. I'm surprised by the number of people who tool around in snow and ice in 'all season' tires. Also, that writing tone is obnoxious.
- bigstrat2003 9mo agoEh, all seasons do you just fine. Not worth the effort to put winter tires on, imo.
- antupis 9mo agoDifference is pretty big if it’s icy like breaking 100 meters vs 10 meters. Especially if there’s wildlife like reindeers/moose’s you are going to do emergency breathing semi regularly.
- literalAardvark 9mo agoIf it's icy there's no difference at all. The only tyres that do anything on ice are the ones with spikes or chains. If it's snowy a good modern all weather tyre can hold its own, but will brake a few feet later than a good winter tyre. In all other conditions a good all weather is a lot better than winter tyres, and pretty close to a good summer tyre.
- ThrowawayTestr 9mo agoYou must live in Florida or be a terrible driver. The difference between winter and all seasons is very apparent.
- literalAardvark 9mo agoIt is. However the difference between winter and a modern all weather (it's a different class) isn't. And yes, we're probably terrible drivers. I do not live in Florida. 45N, continental winters. I'm never using winter tyres again unless society breaks down and no one shovels the roads anymore.
- fulafel 9mo agoA lot of this seems to deal with unreliable electricity infrastructure and effects thereof. Is it just normal in the US and people in warmer places don't mind so much, or does it somehow correlate with snow?
- yxhuvud 9mo agoTrees fall down due to combination of heavy snow and wind. They probably don't cut sufficiently around power lines. It is extra bad if the ground hasn't frozen properly yet. In some places it may be cheaper to dig down the cable than facing storms.
- ndndndndj 9mo agoBut why are power lines above ground in the first place?
- joecool1029 9mo agocost, it’s way more expensive to dig. more red tape.
- bob1029 9mo agoMakes them a lot easier to get to. Buried infrastructure is fantastic until it breaks. Then it really sucks ass. A lineman can fix anything on a pole within a few hours. Probably before lunch if they start first thing in the AM. Fixing a buried line can take days or worse depending on what's above it.
- Marsymars 9mo ago> Buried infrastructure is fantastic until it breaks. Then it really sucks ass. Or if you want to upgrade it. My local electricity provider charges an order of magnitude more for upgrading home electrical service for more amperage if your service line is buried.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- yxhuvud 9mo ago8: that's why you have sharper slopes on the roof if you expect a lot of snow. Then it glide off. We have to get our city house roof shoveled, but it is more making certain it don't fall on top of someone.
- dlcarrier 9mo agoIt can also be structural. Depending on the elevation, my county mandates houses be designed to survive wind speeds up to 157 miles per hour and snow loads up to 545 pounds per square foot. That means a flat roof would have to be built like a parking garage floor, but a sloped roof can transfer that weight to the exterior walls, and an true A-frame directly transfers the load to the ground.
- jmspring 9mo agoI spent 7 years living in an area with 1m acre fires, winters that were 4 feet in april and nothing in december. Having a house setup where you have multiple heat sources - important. My fireplace had a fan and my kerosene heater was pretty low maintenance as well - a honda 2200 generator under the eaves - only needed once. UPSs for power outages. Chest freezer - put those 1 gallon crystal springs (if in western us) jugs in to have ice blocks. Have warm clothing. If you live in an HOA, be on top of them plowing both common areas and walk ways (mine was supposed to, FedEx/UPS/DHL all let me know - the walkway couldn't be an ice sheet). Ensure you have access to a vehicle to get your to the services you need.
- jmspring 9mo agoI hated the reference to burning man. Most burning man people I have dealt with don't plan long term (aside from the event) and the long term planning they do have - isn't usually at their home.
- jmspring 9mo agoFor context, I was born/raised SF Bay Area. Moved to Plumas County (north of Truckee) in 2017 for about 8 years. Didn't mind the snow - have a tacoma trd off road. The electric coop was amazeballs even when PGE tried to screw with them. I've since moved. I like rural - but the wild fires and trumptopia kinda soured me. I live on an island now with a driveway that has 15-20 degree slope. It snows rarely, but garage is insulated and I need to get a heater near the water pipes. It snowed the one day I had to get to the ferry at 650am for jury duty. I'm glad I had the TRD - it wasn't much but waking up to - doo-dee-doo - drive to ferry and unexpected 2" of snow...causes some anxeity.
- hysan 9mo agoSomething about the tone of the article just makes me want to write a retort / criticism instead of praising the advice. Maybe it’s because it feels like an incomplete list or that it’s too generalized but written like the author has learned it all. For example, no mention of learning when and what to do to avoid frozen pipes. Or how to fix things when it happens. Also, shoveling snow isn’t that hard if you have the right snow shoveling equipment and know a bit of physics (which in my experience, locals will gladly teach you).
- vl 9mo agoI actually enjoyed the writing. It's clearly reflection on the experience presented as an "advice list" somewhat jokingly. Since author didn't enjoy the experience, tone is somber. After spending childhood in the cold place I can relate.
- fwipsy 9mo agoIt's not really meant to be advice. It's the author's own experience, ironically written as if it were advice. For example: "You did bleach ten gallons of well water for long-term storage already earlier in the year, right? Good." This is sarcasm, because the author did not do that.
- hysan 9mo agoAh I see. That didn’t translate well for me. Maybe because the title primed me into thinking that this was meant to be helpful.
- xxs 9mo agoIt's obviously a self-depreciation/joke style. There is some truth in it [that doesn't translate well over to some other part of the works]. It requires rather poor infrastructure to be present. There has been snow for over 2 months here, with relatively low lows (-29C) but no issue like lack of electricity or water.
- fwipsy 9mo agoThat's fine, humor is subjective. I had a similar experience watching the "manchild" music video recently. I knew it wasn't serious, but I was still annoyed until I thought it through and understood the satire.
- computerdork 9mo agoMoved a year ago from California to northern Michigan. To add to this list, specifically regarding "Do NOT get wet and cold": o If you're walking out in the cold, have many different ways to keep your feet and your hands warm, because usually, you'll have a good-enough coat and winter-pants that'll keep your core relatively warm, but it's the very ends of your extremities that get cold (just got a small amount of frost bite on my toes the other day). o On top of really thick gloves and socks, can buy some battery-heated versions of both. These aren't just gimmicks, they work wonders! As do the standard handwarmers and toewarmers o Get real winter boots, these are water proof and insulated, so your feet won't get wet, and will resist the cold for longer (didn't learn this one until recently. Yeah, once your shoes get wet enough to bleed into your socks, you feet start to freeze). o For your head and neck, carry one of those head and neck covers with you in your coat pocket (called a balaclava). Because sometimes you misread the weather and suddenly you've got a 5 degree wind chill streaming over your neck and face. o etc:) And, actually, walking in the snow is really nice (so clean and pure), which is why a lot of us here do actually go outside.
- oldestofsports 9mo agoThis guy has mastered the art of dressing for winter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG3WfCWU9D0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG3WfCWU9D0
- internet_points 9mo ago> battery-heated versions all the ones I've seen when researching were lithium-ion from sketchy-looking brands, any brands you recommend?
- yokoprime 9mo ago> In the first really heavy winter storm of the year, your power might go off. This is understandable Having lived in Norway most of my 40+ years on this earth, I can with some confidence say that this is not an universal truth. I don’t think I’ve experienced any power interruption of over 1 hour in winter ever, and it’s been at least 5 years since the last time. Yes it snows here. A lot.
- colechristensen 9mo agoThose of us with above ground power lines especially not in cities experience power outages. Particularly when it's near freezing and there's significant ice accumulation.
- nxpnsv 9mo agoWe have above ground power lines in the nordics too. They are just built to handle our climate.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- matttproud 9mo agoYeah, it was interesting to see some above-ground-to-the-premises power delivery in some of the smaller Norwegian villages above the arctic circle. Things looked rather robust, though. I lived in the Oklahoma and in Minnesota, and the difference there is already stark: * OK suffered from plenty of storm-induced winter power outages (massive freezing rain cycles were common in my life). My mother's cotton bath robe, which she kept using until late in her life, had burn marks from when she reached for something over a lit candle during a power outage when I was four years old. * MN suffers some, but people knew to develop meaningful contingency plans. Both states have variegated buried-power-to-the-premises usage. It's not really to be expected as the norm in either place, but MN has far more than OK (funnily enough I grew up in a place in OK with it). Either way, the infrastructure robustness in North America looks like it arose from a dismal cost-benefit analysis versus a societal welfare consideration. I left North America about 14 years ago for Europe. The difference is stark. We've only had one significant power interruption in that time (not even in winter); whereas stochastic neighborhood outages were commonplace in North America. What really freaks me out about the situation in North America is just the poor insulation of the structures and their low thermal mass. They will get cold fast. Aside: A lot of friends and family in North America balked at the idea of getting a heat pump due to performance during a power outage: "when the power goes out, I can still run my gas." When I asked them whether the house was heated with forced air or used an electronic thermostatic switches, the snarky smile turned to a grimace. When you live in a cold place, you learn to do things differently. You're naive if you don't pack warm blankets and water in your vehicle, for instance. You never know when you might find yourself stranded somewhere due to vehicular breakdown …
- krzyk 9mo ago> In the first really heavy winter storm of the year, your power might go off. This is understandable but you do have to think about it beforehand. Power going is last thing I would think happens in such place. I understand wind, but snow? I get that rural places might get power cables in the air, but in cities those should go underground. I live in rural area, close to big city in a semi snowy place (depends on winter), in the last 10 years power went out only when constructions workers cut it out because they had to do some work on them.
- colechristensen 9mo agoIce on power lines. It's the freezing rain mix in just the right conditions that builds up ice on anything and takes down lines.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- qingcharles 9mo agoAll the damned power lines in Chicago seem to be above ground on poles in the alleys. They were always breaking. It was infuriating coming from a place with buried lines.
- rags2riches 9mo agoIf you let people walk on snow, it turns to ice. Shovel that snow asap. Also keep a brush on your doorstep and always use it to clear off the small patches of snow that falls off your shoes, lest you soon have patches of ice there.
- internet_points 9mo ago+1, I learnt too late how useful a brush is, also for clearing small puffy snowfalls much faster than shovelling
- Quothling 9mo ago24. Check your attic. If snow blows in there because your roof is damaged then it will melt and slowly turn your entire house into fungi. The damage to your roof can be so tiny you wouldn't spot it and your attic could still fill up during a snow storm. It should frankly be nr 1. At least if you ask any Scandinavian dad.
- Marsymars 9mo agoThis is a concern of mine, and my attics (3 of them due to the way the house is built) are pretty inconvenient to check, so I put some battery-powered temp/humidity sensors in them. Haven't gotten around to setting up any alerting thresholds though... I'm not actually entirely sure what temp/humidity thresholds would actually be useful.
- deltoidmaximus 9mo agoMaybe you could put a camera up there to check for snow. Not sure how you'd power it if it was wireless though, not a lot of solar energy in an attic.
- yakshaving_jgt 9mo agoI've spent the past month in the mountains in Ukraine, and it's been as low as -18ºC at times. Terrorists from russia have repeatedly knocked out power generation, and so on many days we have very little access to electricity in the house. Today we have 15.5 hours without power. During the day, we'll be somewhere where they have a generator. At night, it's cold. But you can somewhat prepare for this. Two or three layers of duvets and blankets, paired with a hot water bottle somewhere in the middle of the bed under the covers will get you through the night.
- jader201 9mo agoOne thing this article doesn’t cover (but probably should): shoveling snow has a fairly high risk of heart attacks (especially past 50): https://newsroom.heart.org/news/snow-shoveling-can-be-hazardous-to-your-heart https://newsroom.heart.org/news/snow-shoveling-can-be-hazard...
- delis-thumbs-7e 9mo agoI suspect it is because snow storms are fairly rare or at least random and quite a few people do not a) realise they have not done much of any physical exercise for ages b) think shoveling snow is easy, try to do it fast and take too big loads into shovel (which you can with snow, but not with sand). For older people this might mean overexertion and possible seizure, if their cardiovascular health is not well either. Solution: don’t be a hero. Take breaks. Take smaller shovelfuls. If the first ten shovelfuls are hard, how hard is the 1000th going to be? I live in Finland, are fairly fit and quite strong, but shoveling the car out of thick snow for half an hour is pretty hard work for me. For an older person, it must be double as hard.
- stevekemp 9mo agoHere in Finland there are a lot of people brought to hospital due to heart attacks whilst shoveling snow. I didn't expect that, though I can't claim to be surprised by the number of elderly people who go to casualty due to falling on ice.
- dlcarrier 9mo agoCold weather itself increases the chance of heart attacks. Heat waves get all of the news coverage, but cold weather is the real killer: https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Which-Kills-More-People-Extreme-Heat-or-Extreme-Cold https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Which-Kills-More-People-Ex...
- jve 9mo ago> 5. Snow is easiest to shovel when it’s just fallen. The more time passes, the more freeze-thaw cycles – even gentle ones – build up and make the fallen snow denser and tougher. (This might be less true in very cold places where it never gets above freezing during the day? I don’t know, honestly.) If it is very cold and no freeze-thaw cycle, the snow is very... Dry and grainy and still OK for shoveling. But yes, the puffy stuff just fallen from sky is very nice for shoveling.
- keiferski 9mo agoI grew up in a snowy place and I still live in one. I tell myself every year that this negative experience “builds character”, that being stuck inside forces one to be more intellectual, read more, etc. I kind of still believe that story, but as I get older it starts to feel like cope, and the sunny shores of Miami / Spain / Warm Place seem more full of life.
- vachina 9mo ago> starts to feel like cope In a way you’re right. All the effort to reduce energy usage, go green, the savings are all negated with energy spent on generating heat and emissions.
- dlcarrier 9mo agoAlso, sunlight improves your health: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYnUPxG7ONk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYnUPxG7ONk
- tgsovlerkhgsel 9mo ago> instruction manuals ... often have useful information ... A surprising number of my peers don’t realize this. That's because instruction manuals always have a lot of useless information, and many of them have only such useless information. One of my computer mice came with guidance to avoid prolonged contact with skin and I'm pretty sure nothing in that manual was of any value.
- Tor3 9mo agoManuals used to have tens of pages of useful information, if not more. These days it's just tens, if not a hundred pages of (mostly meaningless) warnings, in different languages, and sometimes only that. If you're lucky there's a single page of mostly pictures and a few lines of text, and typically just the obvious parts. I went through some old storage boxes yesterday. Found "manuals" for a number of items. One had four manuals. Turned out it was just that they could only stuff half a dozen languages of warnings in one manual, so they made a bunch of them, all just the same warnings, in different languages. More paper for the recycling centre.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 9mo agoI particularly miss the spec page that used to be standard in every manual and is now increasingly rare. Of course, the really old/good manuals also had schematics, and there were a few cases where those were really help when we actually had to repair stuff like that. For some simpler things that would make sense even today but it ain't happening...
- dlcarrier 9mo agoInstruction manuals often only contain legally required information, making them particularly useless. You've happened upon the difference between compliant and capable. See also, any military technology, which costs 10 times the normal price to meet strict compliance requirements, often while completely disregarding capability. My favorite response to the issue is the AcessiByeBye plug-in (https://www.accessibyebye.org/ https://www.accessibyebye.org/) which blocks accessibility compliance overlays that make web pages difficult to use with keyboard navigation and accessibility tools like screen readers, but are needed to meet accessibility regulations.
- jonasdegendt 9mo agoTook a winter trip to Norway once with friends, which included a Norwegian that'd immigrated away to the much milder climate the rest of us were all used to. We got a meter of overnight snow and I'd never seen a person so eager to get shoveling, it took her right back to her childhood. What a machine too, once she got going. We were dealing with -10C to -20C , but as someone else pointed out my takeaway was that it's really your extremities that you need to think about, there rest of my body was easy to keep warm in comparison. I ended up taking a pair of winter motorcycle gloves I had laying around on the trip, water and wind proof and those worked like a charm with an additional pair of thin, inner gloves, so there's a tip! I didn't quite nail keeping my feet warm though, but I was wearing regular hiking boots with very thick wool socks. Still felt like I was draining heat to the ground at a rapid rate though.
- Stratoscope 9mo agoLately I've been fascinated by Yakutsk, the coldest large city on Earth. About 350,000 people live there, and winter temperatures can drop to –64°C (−83°F). And regardless of the temperature or time of year, they have shopping malls, restaurants, and everything else you might expect to find in any big city. Here are a few recent videos I enjoyed: 24 Hours in the Coldest City on Earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-WGGDRyf68 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-WGGDRyf68 How We Live in the World's Coldest City - Typical Apartment Tour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikUSFU7TlYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikUSFU7TlYc How We Heat Our APARTMENT at -64°C| -83°F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHbsYYELV94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHbsYYELV94
- disillusioned 9mo agoThe outdoor market in that 24 hours video really got me. These women are just out here, selling very, very frozen fish, for hours at a time. Like... they didn't want to move that market inside?
- Stratoscope 9mo agoIt really is something. Of course, large commercial kitchens often have walk-in refrigerators and walk-in freezers. In Yakutsk, you have an open-air walk-out freezer. There are a few months in the summer when temperatures are similar to the Bay Area. I could probably wear my usual aloha shirts!
- qingcharles 9mo agoLiving in a place that often drops down to insane temps, I am also obsessed with watching the YouTubes from there.
- dlcarrier 9mo agoOnce I shoveled some stairs immediately after the first snowfall of the year, on a night well below freezing, and there was a boot print of solid ice frozen onto one of the steps. It's one of the creepiest unexplainable things I've ever seen. I can't think of any way it could have formed, and it was in the middle of a staircase with at least a dozen steps. My best guess is that, because it was a wooden step, the boot print was permanently imprinted into the step itself, and somehow it had filled with water and frozen before the snowfall.
- inglor_cz 9mo agoAliens. It is always the aliens. And they love to wear Martens.
- deltoidmaximus 9mo agoMaybe some one walked up the steps with packed snow on their boot and it came loose on that step and then froze and was snowed on after.
- jval43 9mo agoSounds very grim. I live in a snowy part of Europe and very little of this applies, except the stay dry and warm part. Here are 2 things I learned: 1. Do what everyone else does, when they do it. And don't, when they don't. You could die. There is usually a reason even if you don't understand it right now. You don't want to find out why when you're out in the cold and freezing. 2. Buy gear locally. There's sometimes reason a certain item is on the shelf and not the stylish one from California, or the super heavy-duty one from Norway. Unfortunately, often this is only obvious in hindsight. Does not depend on price, but it does apply across the board from clothing to cars.
- dlcarrier 9mo agoI'm in California. We have good cold-weather gear, you just have to get it from the right kind of store, specifically one that supplies outdoor workers.
- jval43 9mo agoMaybe California is a bad example. What I'm getting at is the selection for what you need is usually larger and more applicable to the conditions locally. I see plenty of tourists with winter gear that is either insufficient, or completely over the top. Whereas if you buy locally you'd generally find the right stuff.
- dlcarrier 9mo agoI think the bigger problem is that many of the tourists don't normally spend time outside, so they are used to only having enough gear for a heated building or car, even at home.
- wavemode 9mo agoOne of the big things people don't appreciate enough is the importance of thick, layered, solid winter gear. When reading reviews online "these gloves are so warm!" you really need to interrogate whether the reviewer is from northern Canada or northern California.
- shmel 9mo agoI grew up in Siberia where it gets cold down to -40C (coincidentally it's also -40F). I don't recall power going out for more than a few seconds. 24h without power or heating sounds batshit crazy for me. If it's a regular occasion it means either the infrastructure is outright non-existent or it gets literally blown up like in Ukraine. Same goes for shoveling snow. Yeah, I did it. Probably about 5 times in 20 years.
- steve_gh 9mo agoGloves: if you have to take them off outside, brush the snow off them first, then put them in an inside pocket. You will naturally sweat a little, so the gloves will be a little damp inside even if you don't notice it. If your gloves are in an inside pocket they stay warm. Otherwise you will find that your hands freeze when you put your gloves back on.
- luigibosco 9mo agogood tip, but gloves are like all season tires! winter = mittens!
- SenHeng 9mo agoI've found used snowboarding gear is best for when you need to muck around in the snow. Mittens keep your fingers warm while still letting you handle stuff like shovels and grab at things. You can dig through snow in mittens. Used snowboard boots tend to be fairly water proof, soft enough that you can walk in them, hard enough that you won't stub your toes and are fairly good at keeping the snow out. Snowboard pants and jackets are both water _and_ wind proof to keep the weather out. They're baggy so your movement is not restricted. They also have a million pockets so you can carry stuff. Jackets usually have a hoodie so you can put on headphones. When shovelling snow, don't use a shovel. Use a snow scoop. Push instead of lifting. If you have to use a shovel, use something metallic that easily slices through snow, then push them out of the way with the scoop. Don't lift. Or get a snow blower. If your city plows your streets, clear the snow onto the streets just as the plower passes by your house. Then you don't have to get rid of the snow yourself.
- jjav 9mo agoThe #1 lesson to learn from living in a snowy place, is to move away to a place that does not have that problem! That's what I did and living on the California coast is much better.
- tclancy 9mo agoA fun one I only learned recently in spite of having lived with snow all my life: while propane doesn't go liquid until around -80F, the oil pan in the generator needs help somewhere before -40F (and actually that was the wind chill, so it was probably only -20F or so). Thankfully we do have woodstoves, plural.
- bigchorizo 9mo agoHere's a lifehack my dad taught me. If you have cold feet and no way to warm them - stuff some newspaper (or any kind of paper really) in your boots or socks. Most of the cold comes from moisture and paper is incredibly good at sucking it all up. The difference is huge and instant . I feel like this trick has saved me from catching a cold on quite a few occassions.
- BrtByte 9mo agoOld-school winter hacks tend to be simple physics, not magic
- HugoTea 9mo agoIf they turned out to be magic I'd be more surprised
- wnolens 9mo agoThis advice was also given to me if I ever get caught in the rain while camping and soak my shoes. Bring some newspaper for both a firestarter and for leaving in your shoes overnight, and wake up to dry shoes!
- euroderf 9mo ago> If the power’s been off for a while, like, over 24 hours, and then suddenly it comes back on for a few minutes, and then it immediately goes out again This is probably because the average idiot neglects to unplug motors (refrigerator, and other inductive loads), bringing down the network again, entirely unnecessarily.
- BrtByte 9mo agoSnow has this way of revealing which parts of your life are decorative and which parts are infrastructure
- ChrisMarshallNY 9mo agoI suspect most places that experience regular heavy snow, deal well with it. I have a friend that went to school in Buffalo, NY. That’s a city that experiences “lake effect” snow, during the winter. He says all the sidewalks are basically “snow gorges,” but the roads clear quickly, and everyone knows how to dress for the cold. He tells me a story about visiting northern Quebec, one summer, and seeing houses with a second front door, set on the second floor, and was told they were “snow doors,” for deep winter, so folks can get out, when the snow gets deep. We tend to adapt well.
- the_real_cher 9mo agoIs it possible to use a flamethrower instead of a shovel to clear your driveway?
- timbit42 9mo agoYes, but it's nowhere near as effective as you might think. Also, due to its ineffectiveness, it ends up costing a LOT of fuel.
- Reubachi 9mo agothose handheld propane torches, oft used for weedburning on asphault/concrete, are very good for clearing "post snow clean up ice patches, IE tire treads that iced over, foot prints. Not useful for snow as you'll quickly be swimming and out of propane
- OkayPhysicist 9mo agoThe math there gets pretty bad pretty fast. A cubic foot of snow represents ~15 lbs of ice. That corresponds to at 144 BTU to melt a lb of ice, that means you need at a minimum 2160 BTU of fuel (assuming 100% of your heat goes to melting the snow). A gallon of gasoline represents about 114,000 BTU, so each gallon of gas could clear, in a best case scenario where you can capture 100% of the heat, only 50 cubic feet of snow. That's a 10-foot by 10-foot area covered in 6 inches of snow. But even that's in the dream scenario where somehow your snow is in a sealed, insulated space. In the real world, snow tends to be outside, in the cold air, which is very eager to sink and replace any hot air you make at ground level. So you're losing any heat that warms the air at all. And all that air in the snow makes it a fantastic insulator, meaning the vast majority of your heat isn't going to penetrate. Interestingly, this same phenomena makes melting snow from underneath much more effective (as the great insulating snow captures the heat). You still need to grapple with the kinda nuts amount of energy it takes to melt ice, but at least you're not wasting 90% of it.
- the_real_cher 9mo agoThank you for the detailed response! That explains why you dont see more flamethrower driveway clearing services.
- cess11 9mo agoRegarding 5, the colder it is, the quicker the snow will settle and become hard to shovel by hand. Not like when it thaws and refreezes, but if it is -25 C you'll want to move most of it while it is falling or shortly after. It is likely the snow particles are very small and it will become very dense if allowed to sit for a while. Regarding 6, you can't shovel snow fast. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Don't use a regular shovel, there are sled-like contraptions that allow you to push the snow around on the ground and that will allow you to bring it further with less effort. Dress appropriately, you don't want to become too sweaty and you are going to figure out an equilibrium where your heat and sweat production stabilises your temperature, or you're going to have to take breaks and on average get less done per unit time. Regarding 9, if you don't have an axe, get one. In harsh conditions tools are what keep you alive and things like axes and knives are part of the basic equipment you need to have and take good care of. You do not split the wood indoors, do not bring it indoors unless it is split in small enough parts that lighting it will be easy. Also, you should really avoid using wood that hasn't had good shelter up until time of use. Moist wood will add a lot of soot to your chimney and you are likely not able to clear it yourself, meaning that you run the risk of a chimney fire.
- mikemarsh 9mo agoBeautiful, living in Southern Michigan and dealing with slightly more snow than usual this year, I feel like a wimp compared to some of my snowy-weather compatriots here from Norway, Canada, etc.
- neuroelectron 9mo ago5. Snow will still get denser overtime, even if it never gets above freezing. the sunlight will melt it regardless.
- Cthulhu_ 9mo ago> If you’re short on kindling, sufficient cardboard CAN be used to light a big log on fire. Another trick to make kindling, take cardboard or old egg boxes or I suppose kindling wood and dip them in molten candle wax / paraffin.
- deltoidmaximus 9mo agoIf you're my FIL you just put kerosene on the log first.
- graybeardhacker 9mo agoI see a lot of people saying "We never lose power, what are you talking about?" I've lived in several places in New England, some more rural than others. Some places you lose power often, other you don't. Even within the same town. Even if you are not in a rural area. It just so happened where I lived previously, we rarely lost power while friend across town lost it all the time. Many times I loaned them my generator. I now live in a much more rural place. We lose power more now. Not often, but it happens. Trees fall, cars skid into poles, shit happens. It's good to be prepared. Ver bad things happen to your pipes without heat.
- 827a 9mo agoInteresting conversation I had with someone from a semi-warmer climate recently, as they visited: After seeing all the snow on the ground, they commented "wow it must snow all the time here". Me: "Well, we had that big winter storm, when was that, three weeks ago? I don't think its snowed much since then". You can see the gears turning as they come to the realization that snow doesn't, like, go anywhere. If it snows below freezing, that snow stays on the ground. It doesn't melt. The city can move it to more convenient locations, and a very few rich cities have snow melting machines, but most cities don't. Its obvious when you think about it, but if all you're used to is rain its not trivially obvious: The grand snow strategy of most municipalities is "hope it gets warm soon".
- pants2 9mo agoThis is an interesting way to frame it, but then the obvious question is, for areas where it almost never gets above freezing, why doesn't the snow get infinitely thick? The other main ways you lose snow are: sublimation, wind blowing it elsewhere, compaction, and getting dirty (darker color helps it melt in the sun). All of these are relevant for other cities in the snow.
- nancyminusone 9mo agoIt does, see: Antarctica
- sophacles 9mo agoCompaction doesn't lose snow. It loses air. This causes the pile of snow to shorten.
- dathinab 9mo ago> but then the obvious question is, for areas where it almost never gets above freezing, why doesn't the snow get infinitely thick? this is how glaciers are created snow getting stuck up, not melting, compressing by weight into much much smaller ice and then more stacking up. And during the last ice age this repeating for a very long time (because snow is mostly air, so the amount of ice you get from it is very little). The reasons why this isn't too big of an issue on the north/south pool, Antarctica etc. is because this places are also very dry/don't have a lot of snow fall. To have snowfall you need water in the air. Which mostly comes from heat evaporating water. This doesn't happen in non stop freezing cold places. So the wind needs to carry the wet air over. But there is a gradient between hot wet air places and very cold places. So a lot of water rains or snows off before reaching the places where snow doesn't melt. A large part of the south pool is technically a desert as it has hardly any _new_ snow fall. Just a lot of years old snow getting moved around by wind.
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- bevelwork 9mo agoWe had a house growing up in Alaska with a steep pitch, and our Dad would get us in trouble for parking the car "too close" to the threshold of the house where the the accumulated snow on the roof could slide of and pound anything in its path. One day sitting at the dinner table, we heard a giant slide and heard it smash onto the car, and fortunately we found the car keys in my Dad's jacket that night.
- standarditem 9mo agoThe other way to flush a toilet without running water is to fill the tank of the toilet with water, then flush it normally.
- gwbas1c 9mo agoI have to 2nd this. It's significantly easier. I used to do this in the CA drought where I would fill a bucket when waiting for the shower / sink to get hot, and then use the bucket to fill the toilet after I flushed it.
- humanpotato 9mo agoThe only sane way unless you have not enough water to fill the tank. Oh wait, you can fill it with that solid water on the ground, as long as you give it a few hours to melt from the ambient heat in the house between each use.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- NoSalt 9mo agoLet's have an article on: "Lessons you will learn living in a place that doesn't regularly get a lot of snow." I live in Northern Virginia, and ... DAMN, this has absolutely sucked for the past [almost] three weeks.
- gwbas1c 9mo ago> If you’re short on kindling, sufficient cardboard CAN be used to light a big log on fire. Fatwood (on Amazon) is amazing for this kind of stuff. It's much easier to start up a wood stove with a few sticks of it than "sufficient cardboard". (Que the holier-than-thou folks who admonish anyone who has a wood stove.)
- threethirtytwo 9mo ago24. Live in CA.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- gnarlouse 9mo ago> Push comes to shove No, no, no! Push comes to shovel
- mikestew 9mo agoI really do hate throwing shade on someone's article, but this reads like one of those "Pearls of Wisdom from Two Years of Junior-Level Software Development". Thanks, person who just a few months ago moved to a snowy, remote area with poor infrastructure, but this is NOT how you flush a toilet with no running water: "Anyway, to flush a toilet without a running tank, dump about a gallon of water right into the bowl as fast as possible." No, ya dork, you fill the tank then flush. There were a few other pearls, but no need to pile on. Anyway, I hope someone finds it useful or perhaps is put off the idea of moving to rustic, romanticized places when they'd be better off elsewhere.
- chasd00 9mo agoIt’s been a while since I had to operate a toilet without water service but what they described only works for the first flush since the tank would be full. After that, the tank is empty and after you fill the bowl, with the tank still empty, there will be barely any gravity assisted flow to “flush”. Makes me think they’ve actually never been in that situation.
- micromacrofoot 9mo agoNo mention of wool unfortunately, if you've got to be wet and cold... nothing else beats it.
- snapetom 9mo agoI'll add this - for the love of God, please brush the snow off your car before you drive, especially after a storm. If it gets above freezing during the day and freezes again at night, the snow will go through a melt/freeze cycle to become a nice thick sheet of ice. I don't know how many times I've seen a 3 inch sheet of ice go flying off a car traveling 70 mph on the Garden State Parkway. This is common sense and it's infuriating how brain dead people are about this. Incidents have killed people before. Thankfully I've also seen NJ State Troopers hand out tickets for this. I now live in a state, Washington, where the politicians are too busy grandstanding on stupid issues while ice sheets go flying at cars around on the freeway after a snowstorm.
- teeray 9mo ago> Even if your house technically runs on propane, and you have propane, electricity might still run the propane, so your house is going to get cold. Unless you run the woodstove. Which you will Corollary: don’t buy a house in a place where it snows without two fully independent sources of heat. You want backups. There’s a reason why woodstoves are so popular in New England. A millivolt gas log stove on a thermostat can also be a good alternative.
- dathinab 9mo agoPart of this isn't just relevant for "heavy snow" places but also for rear emergency situations you anyway should be prepared for. This winter we had a power hick up _and then_ a multi day power outage. > You have a lot of batteries, flashlights, shelf stable food, warm clothes, and drinking water stored, right? Good. I hadn't. Luckily the power outage was quite local so I could take a bus for ~30min to get to some shops, including ones with flashlights. Also no propane heater or similar, you don't expect to need it where I live. I would have loved having had it even if just for a bit. I also had a 1kWh battery. But some annoying surprise: - 1kWh is a bad size, to big (but still possible) to nice by food carry somewhere where you can recharge it but too small to use it for a lot of things - Turns out even if you blanked is theoretically insulating enough to handle very cold temperatures, if it's cooled down, you bed is cooled down, and you yourself are cooled down you need quite a time to warm it up with body head. Doesn't matter that it can handle the temperature or having very warm clothes it will be a huge pain. Having some way (e.g. heat blanked run by battery) to slightly heat up your blanked _before_ you enter it makes an enormous difference when sleeping at ~10C. - In general learn about winter camping tips they help you if you need to bridge 1-2 days in a very cold apartment. Also having a winter camping sleeping bag can be nice. ----- The 3rd point is just general good advice, at least skim the manual it might have surprisingly important things in it. And sometimes random but useful tips. --- > build up and make the fallen snow denser and tougher fun fact: this is how glaciers are formed, from non melting snow fall pilling up over years and by wight compressing the snow to ice
- marpstar 9mo agoThe most recent thing I've learned after a lifetime in the Midwest US: There's nothing like the 'Snow Wonder Snow Scoop'[1] for moving snow manually. Someone left theirs at my wife's previous home and she's kept it since. I don't get sore after shoveling anymore. I have a snow blower but only use it when there's more than 6" on the ground. I've tried other "push sled" style scoops and none of them work this well (and weigh so little). [1]: https://snowscoop.com https://snowscoop.com
- j_bum 9mo agoThe pictures show what looks like very powdery snow. How does this fare with wet and icy snow?
- marpstar 9mo agoHonestly, even better. It's the wet snow that's especially heavy (and risky for your back), so not having to lift it is invaluable. Only when the snow is considerably taller than the scoop does it begun to show its weaknesses.
- luigibosco 9mo agoWho's afraid of the big bad wovel (snow wolf)? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D3FzAk3fsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D3FzAk3fsA
- waffletower 9mo agoFrozen plumbing pipe lessons ought to be here.
- wafflemaker 9mo agoWhile talking about Norwegian ways to keep warm in winter you can't forget their wool underwear (ullundertøy), which is not underwear (but is often made of wool). It's a set of pants and a long sleeve, worn right on your underwear/body. It greatly improves your heat comfort in winter, which I quickly learned the first time out of town in cold with Norwegians. They take it as a given that everyone owns a set. There's also a hi tech version called superundertøy, which is good at channeling sweat away from body in addition to keeping you warm. Ullundertøy is very warm. I haven't put mine on yet this winter (only using regular long johns), as temperatures haven't fallen below -15*C yet (and it's been coldest winter so far this decade). But I'd wear it if going outside for longer and planning on staying stationary.
- stronglikedan 9mo agoThe lesson I learned is to never live in a snowy place, but they're great for visiting!
- jimnotgym 9mo agoIf too many people read this, then what are FailArmy going to put in all their videos?
- bmitch3020 9mo agoTwo lessons for driving in snow/ice: 1. In a parking lot, clear behind the car, and just enough to get inside. Then back the car out of the space, clear the car off, clear the parking space out, put the car back in the parking space and clear everything you knocked off. If tried without pulling the car out of the space, you'd be trying not to ding up your neighbor's car, clearing in tight spaces under the car, and then doing it all again when you clear off the top of the car into that narrow gap. 2. Don't drive unless you absolutely need to. You may know what you're doing, but others almost certainly don't. But do make sure to clear out at least one car, just in case there's an emergency.
- soared 9mo ago19 - why not just dump water into the tank and flush like normal? Dumping water into the bowl directly is just more complex than letting the existing lever do it.
- beloch 9mo ago>"Do NOT get wet and cold." This is very true whether the source of the water is outside or inside your clothing. Unfortunately, this warning is immediately preceded by the recommendation that you should use rain-gear in winter. A lot of rain gear is very lacking in breathability. If you go out and do something physical in raingear, you will likely wind up drenched in sweat. i.e. Wet. The moment you stop being physical, you will get cold. i.e. Cold and wet. This is a recipe for hypothermia.
- helle253 9mo ago> Do NOT get wet and cold. One thing i keep saying over and over, and few believe me, unless they know from experience - is that winters in Chicago are actually significantly more miserable than Minneapolis, where I went to college. Minneapolis winters are so cold that everything is dry as a bone, so the cold doesn't 'stick' the same way - Chicago winters sit mostly in the 20-40 range where it's both wet and cold (often raining at a balmy 34-38F), and it's much much more immiserating to be outside.
- Reubachi 9mo agoI am in a similar area IE; usual coldest is low 20s, often sits around 32-38f. But have oft worked outside in consistent cold snaps from negatives to 10f or so, also on boats/the docks. working in dry extreme cold is infinitely worse than balmy 35f. One because in both scenarios moving snow/moisute out is required regardless of temps for working safety, and two because dexterity is gone at the lower temps/layering becomes inhibitive to work. Ie; I'd rather work in a rain/snowcoat and be able to use my hands to get back inside quicker, than to work 8 hours outside in the "Clear/dry" extreme cold.