Thursday, February 3, 2011

Cold Enough Fer Ya?

Where I grew up, that's how the old guys used to greet each other in weather like this.  My answer today would be that we've gone far beyond what's cold enough for me!  Knowing I didn't have school today, I slept later, and it was still -23 when I got up!
Although I left a lamp with an incandescent bulb burning to heat the space under our kitchen sink, the lines still froze--but we had them thawed before noon.  Needless to say, I now know that at these low temps, I'll need to leave the water drizzling.  Last night's temps beat the previous record for this date by nearly 20 degrees.
The official low temperature for Moriarty was 34 below zero.
Many parts of the state are suffering from lack of natural gas due to low pressure caused by Texas's rolling electrical outages.  Governor Susanna Martinez has declared a state of emergency.
Both Sweet Teen's school district and the one where I teach are closed for Friday, February 4. Shelters are being set up in areas supplied by the New Mexico Gas Company, but people are being told those are only for warming up, not for spending the night.
Here's what was under the snow ball in the last post.....
 Despite the fact that it was supposed to get up to +20 today, when it was only +9 about 2:30 we decided we needed to do some excavation.


We made a very slow drive to the post office and to get drinking water. Beneath the snow is a thick sheet of ice--and our trip was much more fortunate than those of a lot of previous drivers.  Of course, I've lived long enough to value survival more than speed!

Apparently today's cancellation for my school district was motivated as much by the fact that they couldn't get the buses' diesel engines to start as it was by concern for students' safety.  Albuquerque Public School had announced a two-hour delay but had to cancel because they couldn't get their bus fleet started either!

We'll see what tomorrow brings.  With today's predicted high of 21 turning out to be only 9, I'm guessing tonight's lows will be much lower too. Both our local electric cooperative and our gas company have said they are not expecting any outages although low temperatures led to some power lines snapping in the communities south of us.

I hope everyone else experiencing similar weather is able to stay home and rejoice in quiltmaking or some other hobby.

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