Baby It's Cold Outside

[Tomasso]

and sit there and stare for hours in the freezing cold at a hole in the ice.

While polishing off a case of beer and a pint of schnapps.

 

[Atticus Finch]

Talk about vintage winter activities! Ice fishing is the iciest! There's a webcam on a small lake in central New York State (Lake Waneta) that I often look at, and there was somebody out there today. It looked like the North Pole, and there was this little hut in the middle of the lake. You have to be a real Wisconsin, Minnesota, upstate New York, Northern New England type of person to enjoy it. About as exciting as watching paint dry. Chop a hole in the ice, plop a line down (don't really need more than about 1 foot of rod) and sit there and stare for hours in the freezing cold at a hole in the ice. Spine tingling! But I guess the sensation of a bite is what these guys live for. And coming home with a nice little pile of fresh frozen fish is not so bad, either.

Until this past week, the closest I'd been to ice fishing was watching Grumpy Old Men. But one thing that I immediately noticed is that fishing seems to play a fairly small part in ice fishing. Drinking and playing poker seems to play a large part. Watching the Packers on the portable TV seems to play a large part. Driving the snowmobile at 100 MPH back and forth across the lake (after drinking and playing poker) is a large part.

If someone happens to accidentally catch a fish....well that's only serendipity.

AF

 

[Foofoogal]

I have photos of die hards playing golf in Scotland in the snow.
Near a hotel with bar so sure they had some antifreeze also.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Until this past week, the closest I'd been to ice fishing was watching Grumpy Old Men. But one thing that I immediately noticed is that fishing seems to play a fairly small part in ice fishing. Drinking and playing poker seems to play a large part. Watching the Packers on the portable TV seems to play a large part. Driving the snowmobile at 100 MPH back and forth across the lake (after drinking and playing poker) is a large part.

If someone happens to accidentally catch a fish....well that's only serendipity.

AF

Your story reminds me of this.

Da Yoopers Second week of deer camp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb9yhhflmvY

 

[jwalls]

Global warming, BAH HUMBUG!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Global warming, BAH HUMBUG!

Los Angeles today: 75 degrees. Sunny with some clouds. Beautiful.


.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

"With Temperatures here in parts of The Swan River Colony reaching 47c/117f this week About 150 Carnaby’s black cockatoos have dropped dead in and around Hopetoun, wildlife officials have confirmed.

Department of Environment and Conservation ranger John Corey said he had found dead birds littering the town’s golf course yesterday morning, suggesting that there was a sudden spate of deaths overnight on Wednesday.

Bodies were found both under trees and across the fairways, suggesting that many may have simply dropped out of the sky, he said."

 

[cptjeff]

7°F (-13 for the rest of the world) today. I'll get a chance to warm up at a hockey game tonight though.

 

[dhermann1]

Is it as bad in Australia this summer as it was last year? Last year was like end of the world scarey hot, from everything I read.
(I love this part of the World Wide Web, and this board in particular. "Say, bloke, how's it down at your end of the planet at the moment?" What world we live in.)

 

[lolly_loisides]

Is it as bad in Australia this summer as it was last year? Last year was like end of the world scarey hot, from everything I read.
(I love this part of the World Wide Web, and this board in particular. "Say, bloke, how's it down at your end of the planet at the moment?" What world we live in.)

Not yet, but it isn't looking good http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/no-fires-but-heatwave-causing-concern/story-e6freuyi-1225818086759

 

[Tomasso]

Freakish cold weather grips South Florida!!!

 

[davestlouis]

Weird weather in the south, 25 degrees in Houston TX the other night, flurries in south Florida...at least when it's 10 degrees here, we're equipped for it. I wonder how many folks in the DEEP south don't even have furnaces in their homes, or have rudimentary ones...I don't know the answer, just wondering.

 

[Edward]

Mopst of the UK is covered in a sheet of ice, I hate the cold.

Heh. Without wanting to minimise the very real problems it's causing for a lot of folks, I love it. I hate the Sun. Seriously, were I one of those folks who ould afford to simply travel and not work, I'd probably spend the year following Autumn/Winter roud the globe - I really do not like the Summer. This year wasn't as bad as some years, but that is, for me, the one downside of living this far South - soon as it hits much over 25 celcius, I get really uncomfortable. It basically turns into a form of SAD for me, right through July and August. Bah.

Aside from the lower temperatures than in many years, here in Central London there's been precious little snow and ice. to gi ve you an idea of how little there has been, the tube has been virtually unaffected, and that's a transport system that basically rolls over for a week if anyone sneezes in the wrong direction.

Global warming, BAH HUMBUG!

Actually, this cold is a direct result of the same - something to do with the polar ice-caps melting and bring the cold south with them.... 'climate change' is probably a better term that 'global warming', as the net result is significant increase in extremities of temperature, both hot and cold.

 

[Atticus Finch]

Weird weather in the south, 25 degrees in Houston TX the other night, flurries in south Florida...at least when it's 10 degrees here, we're equipped for it. I wonder how many folks in the DEEP south don't even have furnaces in their homes, or have rudimentary ones...I don't know the answer, just wondering.

Many, if not most, newer homes in the South use heat pumps for heating and air conditioning. While heat pumps are great air conditioners, they have limitations when it comes to heating.

I have a 1998, air-to-air heat pump. This morning at 7:00, the temperature on my North Carolina porch as 15 degrees...actually one degree lower than what the NWS reported for the same time in Milwaukee. My heat pump's compressor was valiantly churning, but it couldn't stem the tide against the cold...at least not without much help from the unit's auxiliary heat strips. I understand that the newer generation of heat pumps is more efficient than mine, but truth is, air-to-air heat pumps can't cope with temps down in the 'teens. When it is this cold, there simply aren't enough BTUs in the outside air to warm even a modest size home...no matter how efficient the system.

So yes...I expect that there were some very cold folks here in the "Sunny South" this morning.


AF

 

[retrogirl1941]

I live in North Florida. I work at an Ace Hardware and we have sold out of every heater we had! And we had a good 30-40 heaters in stocking two weeks ago. Yesterday we ran out of propane becasue everyone was coming in and filling there tanks for heating units and fireplaces. Yeah its cold! lol

Samantha

 

[Foofoogal]

I wonder how many folks in the DEEP south don't even have furnaces in their homes, or have rudimentary ones...I don't know the answer, just wondering.

most of my family live in the Houston area and do have central air and heat.
I do know though when I lived there I only remember one day dropping low to about 9 degrees. Electric heat is definitely not as warm as gas heat I have discovered since moving to Arkansas. I had all electric when I lived in the Houston area and one time about 1993 had to go to kinfolks home for 2 weeks as an ice storm shut us all down.
This is the main problem down South. The electric lines are above ground in the air and when ice happens trees fall on the lines. Not pretty.
If they get about an inch of snow most have no clue how to drive in it and wrecks abound. Schools all shut down etc.
Everyone I am speaking to though are pretty happy as it has been a good while since cold enough to kill all the insect pest like mosquitoes.
Very important. Come August and 109 degrees you don't want them.

 

[DBLIII]

I live way out in the sticks. Driving to work this morning, I noticed that with the high winds (25 to 35 mph) we had here all weekend, the snow had drifted in rather odd places. The little state road had been plowed, it looked like one lane as the truck must have been moving pretty well since it cut through a snowdrift where there was just the road and big open fields on either side.
I stopped my Jeep and realized the snow at the side of the road was higher than the top of the Jeep.
A drift that big from about 6 inches of snowfall....

 

[nobodyspecial]

Sunday, a lot more people were cross country skiing when the weather was +10F rather than last weekend when the weather was -10F. +10 felt balmy.

 

[JoeNiblick]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkCzGzqikUA

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Here are some pics taken of me this weekend when I was done moving snow.
http://yfrog.com/131003065gj

http://yfrog.com/581003067uj

The jacket is a Tony Nowak Crystal Skull, the pants, shirt, & cardigan are Magnoli in Goldenrod, dark khaki, & camel respectively. The bag is a Magnoli as well. The tie came form solidcolorneckties.com. It is one of their officers ties. The boots are repro WW2 double buckle boots