2022-2023 Winter Weather Thread

[Grade of D as in David 13255]

6 minutes ago, utee94 said:

Yeah lights being out, and downed limbs all over, are the major problems for driving in Austin right now.  The road conditions are okay. 

As the 2007 freeze was ending my windshield was shattered by falling ice as I drove under a streetlight, so watch out for falling ice too.

[MissingInAction 25547]

Sorry meant KXAN

[Armybrat 41365]

Son snapped this pic of a tree that had caught fire after branches touched power lines near his back yard. The ice melted it enough to extinguish it.
Zoom in on the center of the pic and see the burning ends of 4 branches.
 

[SquishMitten 10494]

1 hour ago, texhorn said:

My trees were looking bad yesterday, but they got just absolutely shredded last night. And it's still just below freezing. 

Same here. I’d already lost some big limbs, but last night was devastating. I can tell for sure that a lot more stuff came down, but there’s also a ton that I’m unsure about since damn near every branch is touching the ground. Not willing to get close enough to see if they’re snapped or still just sagging so much. I’ve got 3 beautiful oaks that are in the 150+ year age range, and I’ll be absolutely heartbroken if I lose them. It’s just now gotten to 32 degrees so hopefully we start getting some melt soon

[Samson's Wig 3229]

Our neighborhood looks like a tornado came through.  Huge, beautiful live oaks completely uprooted, roadways blocked by trees, houses with holes in the roof, busted out windows, etc.  This is nuts.   Trees still snapping like bombs going off as you walk around.

We're right next to a large preserve as well, which is going to have so much dried brush from this incident that I'm really looking forward to the nasty forest fire we've been worried about for so long.  Looks like this summer may finally be the year if all these branches dry out that quickly.

 

[The Dog 44853]

This was a big tree in the park behind our house:

Same tree today:

[SquishMitten 10494]

2 minutes ago, Samson's Wig said:

We're right next to a large preserve as well, which is going to have so much dried brush from this incident that I'm really looking forward to the nasty forest fire we've been worried about for so long.  Looks like this summer may finally be the year if all these branches dry out that quickly.

 

Right there with ya. And I’m going to be proactive as hell about cleaning it up, rules be damned. There’s going to be so many chainsaws running around here for a while, hopefully nobody will even think twice about where the sounds are coming from

[Anastasis 23711]

Things are thawing but not fast enough. Two of my oaks in the back just got topped. 

[Js1 87151]

3 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Things are thawing but not fast enough. Two of my oaks in the back just got topped. 

Those are some slutty oaks. 

[KaiserSoze 1017]

1 hour ago, KaiserSoze said:

Coming up on 24 hours without power (78704), good times. The outage status has  been updated to "One or more crews have been assigned" but I suppose that can still mean sometime tomorrow before they get to it.

The power came back on ~45 minutes after the post above. It stayed on for a minute or two then out again... then came back on again 10 minutes later and has stayed on with a couple of blinks. I'm hoping it holds but at least have had some coffee now so if it goes out again it was a nice reprieve. 

Edited February 2, 2023 by KaiserSoze

[Anastasis 23711]

7 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Those are some slutty oaks. 

At this point they appear to prefer face down ass up. 

[Anastasis 23711]

2 minutes ago, KaiserSoze said:

The power came back on ~45 minutes after the post above. It stayed on for a minute or two then out again... then came back on again 10 minutes later and has stayed on with a couple of blinks. I'm hoping it holds but at least have has some coffee now so if it goes out again it was at least a nice reprieve. 

Breaking out the aero press before I kill one of my children. 

[mackavelli 183]

Have an EGO electric chainsaw ready for pickup at Lowes.   Is that everyones plan this weekend?   Cut the fallen branches and then do what?  Bonfire for the next few weeks?   Haul it off?  

[PantsTent 2003]

2 minutes ago, mackavelli said:

Have an EGO electric chainsaw ready for pickup at Lowes.   Is that everyones plan this weekend?   Cut the fallen branches and then do what?  Bonfire for the next few weeks?   Haul it off?  

For my area (SW), large brush pickup week happens to start Monday. If people are able to get their shit out, it's going to take them weeks. Wouldn't surprise me if the city came up with some excuse to postpone or skip it. 

[Nicole44 22209]

It’s hard to capture how much of a tree graveyard my street is. We have a great arborist who has trimmed our trees (mostly oaks) in the past so our yard wasn’t hit as hard as the others but it’s still devastating. So sorry for all of you without heat/electricity etc…ice needs to fucking melt. A little Sun would be nice…

[Deej 77751]

Blue, insurance claims adjuster.

 

[dcar00 14930]

finally some sun and above freezing in near Oak knoll and 183.  need this to hold for a while.  lots of branches down but I'm hoping I haven't lost an entire tree.  was fortunate I did my trees last summer I think and I had them go bit farther with the pruning/undercanopies than normal.

neighbor lost a 40 foot Oak completely uprooted from the front of their house. missed the house by inches. just awful.

[hookemATL 12231]

1 minute ago, Deej said:

Blue, insurance claims adjuster.

 

“Hmmmm that limb looks precut. Nice try, Deej. Claim denied.”  

[Anastasis 23711]

14 minutes ago, mackavelli said:

Have an EGO electric chainsaw ready for pickup at Lowes.   Is that everyones plan this weekend?   Cut the fallen branches and then do what?  Bonfire for the next few weeks?   Haul it off?  

Oak will get stacked, all others go to the brush drop off. 

[Pato del Muerto 53420]

Top half of a chinaberry broke off. Only kept it for the shade it provided, but now my hand is forced and I’ll have to remove the whole thing. 
 

I think some municipalities won’t even pick up chinaberry. 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Pato del Muerto

[Wally Pryor 5400]

2 hours ago, texhorn said:

My trees were looking bad yesterday, but they got just absolutely shredded last night. And it's still just below freezing. 

Here. Trees were already under a lot of strain going into yesterday evening. Another 12 hours of that took things from bad to worse, really worse. 

That was a very weird, unnerving feeling overnight just waiting for things to pop. Literally. And then going out to inspect things - hopefully seeing limbs, not trees down. And hoping they simply hit the ground or fence, and not the roof. 

[Wally Pryor 5400]

52 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

KXAN is skewering Watson right now.

As in?

[PTINS 3500]

2 hours ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

Sad to see all the trees down and I know it's frustrating to be w/o electricity.

When my folks were alive, Tulsa had a really bad storm that dumped ice for three days and knocked power out for practically the entire city. I think my parents were w/o for a week but managed to get along (I have a sibling who lived nearby that moved them into his house). When I took the children to visit some time later, all of the parks grounds were filled with massive piles of mulch from the shredded trees the city had collected. It was both sad and rather stupefying at the same time to see so how large the piles were. IIRC, the city ended up burning a lot of it as there was more than could be utilized by residents and parks maintenance.

My folks had many nut trees (oak, pecan, walnut, hickory) on their property but my dad had always been scrupulous about keeping them trimmed and although they lost some branches, I don't think they lost a single tree in its entirety, which considering the age and size of some of them was pretty lucky. The soil there has less clay and I think that helped, but seeing these pics of the huge live oaks toppled over and split sure does bring back memories of the photos my parents took of their neighborhood of the gigantic branches that stove in roofs and cars.

 

Hang in there folks.

 

Here's a pic from back then from the local news:

I lived in Tulsa then, 1980.  I remember they took all the tree debris to the river channel as a large, central place to process the waste.  There was a stench of damp and decaying vegetation from the huge mounds of dead trees.  I am so sad that central Texas will look like a massive tornado just sat on top of us. 

 

[Orange&White 5572]

59 minutes ago, Wally Pryor said:

 

I'm surprised the weather guys aren't getting hit with this a bit more. As late as Saturday evening / Sunday morning, it was just going to a cold rain mid week. Next thing you know, city's down for almost a week.  We've got really good local guys. I think there was a whiff in this instance.  Oh well. 

Well this very thread had models that showed what was possible, but slorch doesn't like hypothetical models on weather threads, so we couldn't discuss it.

[Gourmand 7778]

 

[Pato del Muerto 53420]

When I was out taking stock and de-icing some of the stressed limbs with a stick, I would occasionally see/hear chunks of ice falling off of power lines onto the road. So everyone be aware of anything overhead as you walk or drive, until the ice is melted. 

[yoladu 4187]

6 hours ago, RamjetFDO said:

Power out (PEC) in 78737 since midnight. And of course, the connected smoke detectors decided it was time to freak out at 3am. I have 10-12' ceilings, so that was fun in the dark. I found the culprit and they're silent now, but my Pippa girl has been in full-on panic/panting mode for the last hour. I'm trying to calm her down and cool her off, as she's overheating.

Fun!

oh man, i had the smoke detector thing happen early wednesday morning (5am). I figure the power goes out, the smoke detectors then begin to rely on the battery. if you have a battery that is dead in any of them, it goes off. trying to determine which detector has the bad battery is not easy!

So, we just took all the batteries out at 5am, just get the alarm.sound to stop, and then replaced them with all new batteries later. Seemed to do the trick.

However, one of the alarms went off last night around midnight from the smoke of a blown out candle. jeez.

[Orange&White 5572]

1 minute ago, Gourmand said:

 

Give her a break. She's out repairing downed power lines right now. Ungrateful bitches!

[MissingInAction 25547]

12 minutes ago, Wally Pryor said:

As in?

Demanding accountability from CoA admin, and putting this disaster on a failure to learn from the previous disasters. 

Also calling out the 100s of millions spent on studies and other bullshit.

This is Adlers shit show not his IMO.

Edited February 2, 2023 by MissingInAction

[strangulation! 1716]

1 hour ago, Armybrat said:

My HOA made me remove half my gravel front yard after it had been xeriscaped 7 years before….without any complaints.

 

were you not great-great-great grandfathered in?

[Knoxtnhorn 6263]

9 minutes ago, Orange&White said:

Well this very thread had models that showed what was possible, but slorch doesn't like hypothetical models on weather threads, so we couldn't discuss it.

Same happened up here (DFW).  One of our main guys - Pete Delkus - posted a graphic Sunday that showed nothing but rain w/ temps only getting close to freezing Tue. morning.  I think he had highs in the upper 40's with lows in the upper 30's for the entire week.  Then, 2 days ago, the fuckstick posted a tweet that lauded his weather skills stating, "Everything we predicted this weekend has gone exactly as planned".  I'm sorry.  I know forecasting can be difficult.  But how GD difficult can it be to state that some models show this; HOWEVER, SOME SHOW THIS BAD THING COULD HAPPEN?  

[Hate 20236]

Same happened up here (DFW).  One of our main guys - Pete Delkus - posted a graphic Sunday that showed nothing but rain w/ temps only getting close to freezing Tue. morning.  I think he had highs in the upper 40's with lows in the upper 30's for the entire week.  Then, 2 days ago, the fuckstick posted a tweet that lauded his weather skills stating, "Everything we predicted this weekend has gone exactly as planned".  I'm sorry.  I know forecasting can be difficult.  But how GD difficult can it be to state that some models show this; HOWEVER, SOME SHOW THIS BAD THING COULD HAPPEN?  

Because people will bitch and question his credibility no matter what.

[Brisketexan 106857]

1 hour ago, HenryJames said:

Mayor is having a press conference. Talking about how this is personally affecting @Brisketexan.

I am important.  Importanter than you.  He damn well SHOULD pay attention to my plight, directly.

Fortunately, my plight is just "no power."  We got lucky with timing -- we spent several grand trimming all our trees just a few months ago.  MAJOR effort, lots of stuff trimmed out.  As a result, so far, just a few small limbs down here and there.

1 hour ago, Wally Pryor said:

As feared, shitastic overnight. Every other hour - crack, one or two seconds, and small boom.  Fence damaged, not sure about minor roof damage.  Can hardly walk in our backyard as it's littered with limbs, and big ones. Thankfully, nothing went through the roof. 

I'm surprised the weather guys aren't getting hit with this a bit more. As late as Saturday evening / Sunday morning, it was just going to a cold rain mid week. Next thing you know, city's down for almost a week.  We've got really good local guys. I think there was a whiff in this instance.  Oh well. 

There were models being discussed last week that called for this exact scenario, as in, "yes, this bad."  They got poo-pooed by everyone.

New lesson, which we should have fucking learned after February 2021 -- "when a model says shit's gonna get bad, presume that it's correct."

This is the new rule for the new era:

[HenryJames 67301]

24 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

 

She spoke at the mayor's press conference this morning.

[Tailgate 3057]

I just went to move a limb off my driveway. I highly recommend waiting for the trees/branches to drop their ice and thaw before you start trimming and chainsawing. The frozen branches are ~3-4x weight of unfrozen.

[Knoxtnhorn 6263]

2 minutes ago, Hate said:

Because people will bitch and question his credibility no matter what.

Right.  But the problem is in forecasting in absolutes.  For whatever reason, Delkus may tie his forecasting to one model; however, there were plenty of models showing that this could get bad.  Instead, he completely misses the forecast, then tries to congratulate himself at a later time.

[yoladu 4187]

i had very Archie Bunker type thoughts last night as i was shivering in the dark in my own goddamn house with the thermostat reading 48F.

• I pay my utilities bills on time without fail.
• i have worked hard my entire life. i don't deserve to have to live like this.
• I already lived this 2 years ago for 96 hours, WTF?

i mean, i know i am spoiled considering how the rest of the 7.9 billion people on this planet live, but last night sucked (all over again).

I guess part of it is the lack of control. 

[Pato del Muerto 53420]

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

we spent several grand trimming all our trees just a few months ago

Sucker. Had you waited, your trees would have been trimmed for free this week. 

[ChickenSandwich 9933]

5 minutes ago, yoladu said:

i had very Archie Bunker type thoughts last night as i was shivering in the dark in my own goddamn house with the thermostat reading 48F.

• I pay my utilities bills on time without fail.
• i have worked hard my entire life. i don't deserve to have to live like this.
• I already lived this 2 years ago for 96 hours, WTF?

i mean, i know i am spoiled considering how the rest of the 7.9 billion people on this planet live, but last night sucked (all over again).

I guess part of it is the lack of control. 

My neighbor across the street bought propane heater, 5 5 gallon gas tanks and a generator after snowmaggedon. We laughed she may never even use them. She is laughing now. 
 

96hours out front says get a Genny

[Celery Man 21089]

Pictures from my sisters place are heartbreaking 

[Hate 20236]

Pictures from my sisters place are heartbreaking 

Post them…and pics of sister.

[Skipper 6411]

9 minutes ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

Right.  But the problem is in forecasting in absolutes.  For whatever reason, Delkus may tie his forecasting to one model; however, there were plenty of models showing that this could get bad.  Instead, he completely misses the forecast, then tries to congratulate himself at a later time.

He definitely didn't predict this on his 10 day but on a couple of forecasts I saw leading up he hedged pretty significantly.   Definitely said it wasn't clear and a few degrees one way or another will make all the difference.

We're melting pretty good in Dallas but still stuck at 32.  This has been a long ass freeze here.  Should finally get to 33 soon I would think but I believe we hit freezing mark Sunday evening and haven't gone above yet.

[Born to Run 6601]

Well this very thread had models that showed what was possible, but slorch doesn't like hypothetical models on weather threads, so we couldn't discuss it.

I have had him blocked for years. Maybe permaban for the sake of improved discussion?

[crash_davis 23468]

2 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

Pictures from my sisters place are heartbreaking 

Does she need someone to console her? Asking for a friend.

[Biff Tannen 46140]

12 minutes ago, yoladu said:

I guess part of it is the lack of control. 

This is all of it for me. Just recently diagnosed with obsessive compulsive personality disorder. Not having fun right now. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

40 minutes ago, PTINS said:

I lived in Tulsa then, 1980.  I remember they took all the tree debris to the river channel as a large, central place to process the waste.  There was a stench of damp and decaying vegetation from the huge mounds of dead trees.  I am so sad that central Texas will look like a massive tornado just sat on top of us. 

 

That was when I was young and don't really remember, the one I 'm talking about was around 2007/08 but Tulsa has had these storms a little more frequently compared to central Texas, due to the way the jet stream typically would drop south in Dec thru Feb.  My folks lived in the southern hilly part of the city with no guardrails or curbs and what was thrilling as a kid became rather terrifying after I learned how to drive.

[utee94 16078]

1 minute ago, Celery Man said:

Pictures from my sisters place are heartbreaking 

Man, pictures from all over are heartbreaking.  I drove all through NW Austin yesterday afternoon, and the devastation is mind-boggling.  Lots and lots of 100-year-old trees gone.  Neighborhood streets in older neighborhoods where the streets are narrow and the tree canopy overhangs, and nearly impassable.  I really have no idea how school buses are going to run through some of these areas tomorrow.  It's going to take more than just days, to clear out the worst of it.

[Samson's Wig 3229]

Blaming weather guys, especially the dweebs on the local news, is ridiculous.  They don't know shit and never will.  We can't predict weather, but we can plan for it.

I do blame the city of Austin for failing to trim trees for years while spending money on bullshit initiatives that don't improve the city in the slightest (looking at you, bike lanes that no one uses because we live in an inhospitable climate).  Jacquie Seargeant should follow Greg Meszaros out to the pasture where completely useless pieces of shit go when people have finally had enough.  Spencer Cronk should follow along behind her.   But it won't matter, because the bozos in this town will continue electing idiots who will put similar people in charge.

It really sucks to be put into a position where you have to choose between living in a city run by folks who can actually manage infrastructure and budgets, but pass bullshit Jesus laws, or a city run by folks who are on the right side of social issues but couldn't manage to get a heavy rock out of a wet paper bag.  I definitely lean heavily towards the latter, but in times like these I begin to question.  Fucking Lubbock is run more efficiently and intelligently than Austin.  Fuck this city for making me have to even consider that reality.

[Paper_jam 851]

18 minutes ago, Tailgate said:

I just went to move a limb off my driveway. I highly recommend waiting for the trees/branches to drop their ice and thaw before you start trimming and chainsawing. The frozen branches are ~3-4x weight of unfrozen.

I tried clipping a few sagging branches that will be too high to reach once the ice melts. This resulted in me getting showered with ice chips, meltwater, and debris.

[stc 1500]

No power since 6am yesterday in NE Austin. This could be a contributing factor...