Why not

[Mike]

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Tonight is my first night back to work, since the morning of Christmas Eve. And we're expected to get an inch of snow. Welcome back to work, Mike, here's your snow shovel.

But that is not the bad part. The NWS has just issued a Winter Storm Watch for the area. We're expected to get up to 6" of blowing and drifting snow, Monday night and Tuesday morning. They say some roads will likely become impassible. And get this bit - The forecast high temperature for Wednesday is just 1°, with an overnight low of -11°.

<looks at paid time off report and sees he still has another week's vacation in the bag>

 

[Wyo George]

I feel your pain. It was -15 here yesterday, warmed up to 2 above today. There's a front coming through tonight, we'll see some 60+mph winds and it'll warm up to 30 degrees by morning..... I miss GA

 

[409T]

It got all the way down to 44 here the other night. You guys probably would have been outside in T-shirts.

 

[AmericanGraffiti]

I live out in the wind currents near Chalmers IN (surrounded by wind mills). My property is on high ground also, so even with just an inch of snow we always get high drifts. I may well be working from home tomorrow...conducting meetings via teleconference. Perhaps between meetings I can go out to the shop and piddle with the T bucket

 

[fletcherson]

I live out in the wind currents near Chalmers IN (surrounded by wind mills). My property is on high ground also, so even with just an inch of snow we always get high drifts. I may well be working from home tomorrow...conducting meetings via teleconference. Perhaps between meetings I can go out to the shop and piddle with the T bucket

I own an old farm and there are about 6500 acres of flat field around me. My house and buildings are on a hill. If we get an inch, I have mauntainous drifts from the blowing snow.

 

[Mike]

Well, myself and another fellow got tagged to go throw salt, at about 3:15 AM, this morning. It was 5°, with a wind chill of -11°, so we didn't dilly-dally.

The storm is just now moving into West Lafayette, and they are saying we will see some pretty heavy stuff. Rates of between 1" and 2" an hour, for a couple of hours. The good news is that the temperature is meant to warm up, overnight. Yeah, we're meant to warm up from 10°, all the way to 12°. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt in my mind that somewhere between 3:00 and 4:00 AM, tomorrow morning, we will be out trying to move snow. My level of anticipation is positively embalming.

 

[RPM]

I thought that salt did not work below 15 degrees?

 

[Mike]

I didn't think so either, Ron, but it was having some effect. They mount rotary brushes on the fronts of Bobcats, and use them to sweep snow from the walks. They ended up sweeping away a lot of the salt we put down, but when we left work this morning, I could see signs there was some melting going on.

 

[mountainman]

Beat me to the draw.
Sodium Chloride "practical working temp" is 15 degrees. Calcium Chloride has a "practical working temp" of -10 degrees.

Mike, make sure they are giving you the "right stuff" before they send you out into the cold, cold night.

 

[Mike]

We unloaded about 700 lbs. of 'salt' for our two buildings, last night. I noticed the bags all said the product would work down to -7° F. This time around, we ended up with a products called Iceaway Turbo. I just looked and it seems to be a mixture of Sodium Chloride, Magnesium Chloride, and Calcium Chloride. We were focusing on entryways and stairs, and it was melting stuff pretty quickly.

The local CBS affiliate was reporting we picked up 5.5" of snow. It's right at 3:45 PM, and the current conditions are 10°, with a wind chill of -6°. It is meant to drop to -6°, tonight, with tomorrow's high being -1. And now, they are saying it will drop to -14°, tomorrow night.

Our averages for this time of year are 34° highs, with 19° lows. But I am looking at our 10-day forecast and don't see anything above freezing, so we're going to be cold for a while. Thankfully, it looks like Friday night will be our last period below zero, at least for the coming week.

 

[fletcherson]

We unloaded about 700 lbs. of 'salt' for our two buildings, last night. I noticed the bags all said the product would work down to -7° F. This time around, we ended up with a products called Iceaway Turbo. I just looked and it seems to be a mixture of Sodium Chloride, Magnesium Chloride, and Calcium Chloride. We were focusing on entryways and stairs, and it was melting stuff pretty quickly.

The local CBS affiliate was reporting we picked up 5.5" of snow. It's right at 3:45 PM, and the current conditions are 10°, with a wind chill of -6°. It is meant to drop to -6°, tonight, with tomorrow's high being -1. And now, they are saying it will drop to -14°, tomorrow night.

Our averages for this time of year are 34° highs, with 19° lows. But I am looking at our 10-day forecast and don't see anything above freezing, so we're going to be cold for a while. Thankfully, it looks like Friday night will be our last period below zero, at least for the coming week.

You are reminding me of one of my early jobs as a maintenance man at a big office building complex in the early 80's. I had to have the walks cleaned and shoveled by 7 am in addition to keeping all the furnaces and other mechanicals going. I don't know where I ever got the energy to do it. I hated that calcium chloride. It seemes like it never goes away and was murder on the carpet in the hallways, but that's another bad memory, lol.

 

[Mike]

Yeah, the building I work in has charcoal-gray, stone floor tiles on the main level. I had that floor, a year ago, and it was a perpetual nightmare, what with all the white footprints on the stone, each night. We would work 4 hours inside, then spend 4 hours outside, removing snow. So everyone was having to cram everything into 4 hours. But on top of that, I would have to get a riding scrubber out and run it on that floor, every night. The only way to lift the salt was to run the water levels about twice as high, run the brush pressure up by about half, and use a ton of vinegar in the water. It would take 1:20 to run the scrubber, then another 45 minutes to an hour, mopping everything the scrubber could not reach. In March 2014, they offered me the top floor in the building, and I was on it like a bad dog. With the exceptions of the restrooms and the custodial closet, everything is carpeted. And being on the top floor, most people have already knocked, or melted most of the brine off their shoes before they get up there.

 

[smokeyco75]

Only thing we use salt for here in Florida is for margaritas lol. Sorry I couldn't help myself. I know dealing wit the snow sucks but usually anywhere it snows is beautiful the rest of the year.

 

[Mike]

I really do hate snow, and I also hate temperature extremes. We can see wind chill numbers in the -45° range, but in the summer, our heat index numbers regularly climb over 100°. I wish we didn't have those extremes, but it's the price we pay for the incredible time during spring and fall.

 

[fletcherson]

I really do hate snow, and I also hate temperature extremes. We can see wind chill numbers in the -45° range, but in the summer, our heat index numbers regularly climb over 100°. I wish we didn't have those extremes, but it's the price we pay for the incredible time during spring and fall.

I am with you on the temperature swings. Lately it seems we got short changed on the spring and fall also. Back to the floor, the grout absorbs that calcium chloride too. I am convinced that using it on the roads is what destroys our cars because it wicks into every nook and seemingly never goes away. It's very corrosive.