My dad was on a business trip to Chicago, and he said it as -35 there... It's 18 in NJ and I thought that was cold...

 

I live near Sacramento, CA and it's been nearly 70 degrees everyday since last Saturday. This is very unusual for Jan.


If we don't get any rain though, we are going to be hurting big time come summer.

 

Minot, North Dakota....

 

driving a soft top jeep in this weather is a bitch!

 

psh get over it... my dads plow is a soft top CJ.

 

and about windchill...

...your car doesn't know about windchill

windchill is what the temperature plus the wind feels like to exposed flesh, and if ya ain't got any exposed flesh you ain't got windchill factor coming into play

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_chill

I lived in Fairbanks AK for many years, and saw -58F real temps one winter - typically saw 3-4 weeks where the temps never got above -30F. You know you have acclimated when 0F feels warm again.

Maybe this year I'll use my winter coat, then again, maybe not - haven't needed it in MN for the past 10 years, so why start now?

All I'm sayin is the same thing the Californians are - when you acclimate to a climate, your body adjusts accordingly.

 

Guess I shouldn't talk about taking the TT out with the top down this morning before the rain.
Weather is GREAT here in Norht Florida, come on down! It has cooled down to 57....burrrr!

 

got colder than that. g'parents called to thank me for giving them a bazillion thread count sheets for Christmas, because it was in the low 20's at night. They're near Ocala.


rmh, how do you start a car at -58, or don't you? I'm seriously considering a block heater, I'd assume everyone in Alaska has one.

BTW, my black eye looks AWESOME. Way better than a broken wrist, but if you wanna add to the list of crappy things that happend over the course of last week, I also got alcohol poisoning after downing a bunch of absinthe. I can remember 4 shots in about 15 minutes, and that the stuff was something like 140 proof. First time in my life I ever blacked out. Woke up in the morning in my usual sleeping corner at my friends house, and coudn't even keep down a single mouthful of water until a full 24hrs later. I was friggen dehydrated like you wouldn't believe.
I'll stick with my trusty beer from now on. I'd physically fill my stomach before I got drunk enough to go thru that. The hard stuff is too risky.

 

We had battery warmers (blankets and pads), oil pan heaters and engine block heaters, some even had recirculating heaters which were a heating element and an external electric water pump that kept your coolant warm, and we plugged our vehicles in all the time.

We also added something (sheet of cardboard) in front of the radiator and behind the grill to keep the radiator from cooling too much.

We also paid special attention to the amount of air pressure in the tires so as not to go thumpity thump down the road until the tires warmed up enough to get back into round.

Once you freeze a parking brake onto a rotor you learn not to use a parking brake at those temps.

The diesel drivers usually didn't turn `em off unless they were in some sort of heated garage, or had an equal amount of heating elements plus a tank heater to keep even the winter mix from gelling.

Most of the places we parked had duplex outlets on posts that you could plug in to when you were there - even the local Fred Meyer superstore had them.

Propane oil pan heaters don't work to thaw vehicles out when it gets colder than -44F since that's the boiling point of propane - e.g. it stays a liquid at -44F.

I should also add that when it gets this cold ice isn't slippery either.

Hope that helps

 

Thats a lot of good info. I now know that you guys in Alaska are all crazy bastards for putting up with so much stuff just to keep a car moving.