As many are aware by now, there’s a storm brewing that’s due to hit a large swath of the US and cause some significant accumulation of the white stuff somewhere (perhaps) near you. The initial warnings started to happen a couple of days ago when the long range forecasters noticed that something was happening and it had the potential of being a big storm. The National Weather Service enacted their initial watches and let people know that they might want to lay on some supplies and be ready for more accumulation than normal for a day or two, and as it just so happens, it’s going to be on a weekend, so for people that work Monday through Friday, it’s going to be better than those of us that have weekends on our work schedules.
As for me, prep is basically make the effort to get the car in the garage. I’ve been putting it off for the past several months, like I always do, thinking “I’ll get to it my next day off” and then that doesn’t happen. With my wife’s recent surgery and recovery period; my responsibilities have increased somewhat, and I don’t have all the free time to fritter away like I used to. So finding time for rearranging the stuff in the garage, and putting a car inside was always pushed to the back burner.
So now I have a deadline. The storm in question should be arriving sometime on Saturday night. Current weather predictions are in the 12-14 in range (30-35 cm) and depending on the track of the storm could go up or down in the next 48 hours. I think I have sufficient food laid on, I definitely have enough ice melt for when I have the driveway and sidewalk clear (still thanking the stars we had the side and front walk replaced this past autumn) I just need to make sure I have enough gasoline for the snowblower to run. That would be a tragedy if I ran out on Sunday morning! It’s sunny right now, and the temperature is about freezing.
The other component that’s arriving is really cold temperatures, so this will be a banger of a storm. The wind chills are predicted to be in the minus ranges, as well as the ambient normal temperature outside. Luckily we have LNG heat and the relatively new furnace is going to get a good test as well. The last couple of cold snaps we have had it worked like a champ. The exhaust and intake ports are on the side of the house, but we’ve never had an issue where they were blocked. With a foot (30 cm+) of snow in the offing I’ll be sure to make certain there’s no issue there, because we’d be in dutch if that happened. Definitely don’t want carbon monoxide in the house, that would certainly cause some breathing issues. So no go on that!
Just made some pancakes to bolster my belly, and now it’s time to get outside and do some work. Update on my success? Stay tuned.