151–160 of 346 posts
> In the first really heavy winter storm of the year, your power might go off. This is understandable Having lived in Norway most of my 40+ years on this earth, I can with some confidence say that this is not an universal truth. I don’t think I’ve experienced any power interruption of over 1 hour in winter ever, and it’s been at least 5 years since the last time. Yes it snows here. A lot.
Here's a lifehack my dad taught me. If you have cold feet and no way to warm them - stuff some newspaper (or any kind of paper really) in your boots or socks. Most of the cold comes from moisture and paper is incredibly good at sucking it all up. The difference is huge and instant . I feel like this trick has saved me from catching a cold on quite a few occassions.
I have a friend that went to school in Buffalo, NY. That’s a city that experiences “lake effect” snow, during the winter.
He says all the sidewalks are basically “snow gorges,” but the roads clear quickly, and everyone knows how to dress for the cold.
He tells me a story about visiting northern Quebec, one summer, and seeing houses with a second front door, set on the second floor, and was told they were “snow doors,” for deep winter, so folks can get out, when the snow gets deep.
We tend to adapt well.
> In the first really heavy winter storm of the year, your power might go off. This is understandable Having lived in Norway most of my 40+ years on this earth, I can with some confidence say that this is not an universal truth. I don’t think I’ve experienced any power interruption of over 1 hour in winter ever, and it’s been at least 5 years since the last time. Yes it snows here. A lot.
Article should be called Lessons you learn living in a place where it regularly snows but with terrible infrastructure and seemingly no societal preparedness for said regular snow
But people still do have chalets/huts in the mountains, and the authorities won't spend money on burying 10 km of cables in complicated terrain just for a small hut colony or a solitary hut. Which means that the cables go through the air, which means that a fallen tree can sever them, and you won't be particularly prioritized. That said, people who actually live there or spend longer holidays there during winter months, tend to have enough firewood collected to survive such situations comfortably.
It is a different story in cities/villages with compact house patterns. I don't think I ever saw a snow-related blackout in such a place. There, your worst risk is actually flooding. We've had some serious floods in the last decades, and even buried cables will get damaged and short-circuited in such an event. For example, the cable needs to cross a stream, so it is attached to a bridge, high water comes and tears down the entire bridge with the cable as well.
Once I shoveled some stairs immediately after the first snowfall of the year, on a night well below freezing, and there was a boot print of solid ice frozen onto one of the steps. It's one of the creepiest unexplainable things I've ever seen. I can't think of any way it could have formed, and it was in the middle of a staircase with at least a dozen steps. My best guess is that, because it was a wooden step, the boot…
Moved a year ago from California to northern Michigan. To add to this list, specifically regarding "Do NOT get wet and cold": o If you're walking out in the cold, have many different ways to keep your feet and your hands warm, because usually, you'll have a good-enough coat and winter-pants that'll keep your core relatively warm, but it's the very ends of your extremities that get cold (just got a small amount of fro…
Put winter tires on your vehicles. I'm surprised by the number of people who tool around in snow and ice in 'all season' tires. Also, that writing tone is obnoxious.
I'm in the foothills in Northern California, and I've never met anyone here that changes their ties out for winter. When there's chain controls, they'll let you through if you have winter rated tires, including all-season, and all-wheel drive, otherwise you need chains. Everyone I know who drives a lot in the snow gets a vehicle with all-wheel drive and everyone else carries chains. (really they're cables, on a small…
Culture has an impact on what people choose to do. I’ve seen so many Americans with your point of view. It’s maddening. Winter tires save lives!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the Nordics it's very rare. There were power outages this year that lasted for more than 24h for some customers. So naturally there was a public inquiry into how the power companies let that happen.
In Sweden it also almost never happens but this year there was a hurricane like storm that fell lots of trees and thousands of people had no power for days. But yeah it wasn’t because of snow.
A lot of this seems to deal with unreliable electricity infrastructure and effects thereof. Is it just normal in the US and people in warmer places don't mind so much, or does it somehow correlate with snow?
Less of an issue in areas where people do get around no matter the snowfall tho.
> In the first really heavy winter storm of the year, your power might go off. This is understandable Having lived in Norway most of my 40+ years on this earth, I can with some confidence say that this is not an universal truth. I don’t think I’ve experienced any power interruption of over 1 hour in winter ever, and it’s been at least 5 years since the last time. Yes it snows here. A lot.