Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place • Hacker News Board

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#331

Post by FuriouslyAdrift » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 3:25 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #283

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indiana here. Power outages due to fallen tree limbs, frozen trees "exploding", ice accumulation on lines, etc. is fairly common. It can take days to bring a grid back up after a major outage. The lead time to replace a city-sized transformer is nearly 4 years, now (ask Puerto Rico about that). https://www.powermag.com/the-transformer-crisis-an-industry-...

It’s not really a question of urban/rural but more a question of “buried transmission lines” or not. We have buried lines and have few if any power issues. richer town a bit over does not, and loses power once a winter or so.

Buried cables are extemely expensive for urban areas (and dangerous over time). Downtown Indianapolis (like most city centers) has buried cables all over and we had exploding manholes for a few years as old main lines aged out[1].

If I remember correctly, buried lines in our area cost around $1 million per mile and they estimated something like $100 billion to do the whole city. It's also 10 times more expensive to repair when repairs are needed. That's why they use poles in less dense areas.

[1] https://www.wthr.com/article/news/for-fourth-time-explosion-...

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#332

Post by mc_maurer » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

phil21 wrote: post #316

computerdork wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good reminder. Actually, I’m there with you, already have mittens, and they are warmer than my gloves (although, my fingers still get cold, even in them). But also, kind of don’t like how they make me look like a teenager, and I already look young for my age, don’t need any help in this department:) have been trying to find a glove-solution that is still warm. Have just tried some heated gloves, they seem pretty good…

> have been trying to find a glove-solution that is still warm. Good luck! Let me know if you find anything, I certainly tried for a few years and now have an absurdly large glove collection to last me a lifetime. I've found when I need to use gloves I just burn a dollar on an iron oxide heating packet - and it mostly works until it gets to about 10 degrees or lower. After that you really need to wear serious winter…

https://www.kinco.com/5210-l

I wear these walking the dog down to -20F or so. They're warm enough with the tops flipped up, and you can quickly flip them down for a little dexterity to tie a poop bag. Not gonna say your fingers won't get cold while you're doing it, but it's the best approach I've found short of multiple pairs of gloves, which is just a pain for a quick dog walk.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#333

Post by Sharlin » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

Maakuth wrote: post #330

Sharlin wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Finland, there's always news about tens of thousands of households being left without power for days after particularly heavy winter storms. It works as a reminder that yes, some people do still live in rural backwoods, their local electricity distribution depending on fragile wires suspended on wooden poles. Whereas living in a town of any size, blackouts caused by weather simply never happen.

Since the Tapani storm of 2011 there's been a massive undergrounding of the power grid, so much of the rural areas are now also quite safe from outages. But there are still a lot of the old type of grid left and the economics for undergrounding those are increasingly unfavorable. Perhaps grid connected batteries next to the transformers might soon be more economical for many of these areas. They could serve other fun…

Yeah. That's partly why it feels so foreign to me that these blackouts would still affect tens of thousands of homes.

The Tapani storm was such a divisive experience. In the city the only effect of the storm I remember was that the windows were ringing quite a bit that night. Otherwise nothing out of the ordinary.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#334

Post by ThrowawayTestr » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 5:47 PM UTC

literalAardvark wrote: post #309

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even after the streets are plowed there's still a bit of snow on the main roads and a lot on the side roads. Maybe you live in a place with really mild winters, but my car would have drifted into a ditch many times this winter if I didn't swap my tires.

No one is saying to drive all year with your summers. Those will glass in winter.

Assuming every road you drive on in the winter will be perfectly plowed and salted is a great way to end up in a ditch.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#335

Post by kjkjadksj » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 7:25 PM UTC

literalAardvark wrote: post #260

kjkjadksj wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are laws of physics you can’t hand waive away. Winter tires are really more cold temp tires. The rubber formulation is different to allow for grip in the cold and dry (tread pattern for cold and snow). As such a winter tire wears heavily driven in the summer, rubber formulation is just too soft. For an all season that level of summer wear would be unacceptable. So a different formulation is used to improve summ…

Please read the studies in this thread. Modern high quality all weather tyres are excellent in summer and winter. Except on actual snow, where they're just ok, because of the hybrid sipe patterns, and ice, where they suck exactly as much as everything else except studded tyres (which suck on tarmac instead).

They are still worse than winter tires in cold dry conditions because the rubber compound is compromised to have acceptable summer wear.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#336

Post by luigibosco » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 7:34 PM UTC

steve_gh wrote: post #127

Gloves: if you have to take them off outside, brush the snow off them first, then put them in an inside pocket. You will naturally sweat a little, so the gloves will be a little damp inside even if you don't notice it. If your gloves are in an inside pocket they stay warm. Otherwise you will find that your hands freeze when you put your gloves back on.

good tip, but gloves are like all season tires! winter = mittens!

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#337

Post by luigibosco » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 7:40 PM UTC

marpstar wrote: post #245

The most recent thing I've learned after a lifetime in the Midwest US: There's nothing like the 'Snow Wonder Snow Scoop'[1] for moving snow manually. Someone left theirs at my wife's previous home and she's kept it since. I don't get sore after shoveling anymore. I have a snow blower but only use it when there's more than 6" on the ground. I've tried other "push sled" style scoops and none of them work this well (and…

Who's afraid of the big bad wovel (snow wolf)? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D3FzAk3fsA

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#338

Post by literalAardvark » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 11:24 PM UTC

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #334

literalAardvark wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is saying to drive all year with your summers. Those will glass in winter.

Assuming every road you drive on in the winter will be perfectly plowed and salted is a great way to end up in a ditch.

It's a 10% grip difference, which is actually in your favour on cleaned roads and only against you on snow.

I really don't understand how this is so difficult to grasp.

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#339

Post by mannykannot » Fri, Feb 13, 2026, 2:56 AM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #81

yokoprime wrote: post #25

> 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.

Even a backward country like the USA, our power has never gone out in the winter. Only in the summer due to lightning strikes.

I guess you probably don’t live in Texas, then!

Re: Lessons you will learn living in a snowy place

#340

Post by joecool1029 » Fri, Feb 13, 2026, 8:57 AM UTC

pests wrote: post #321

joecool1029 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live very near a hospital Yeah, you won’t lose power much. That’s prioritized. I don’t get as many power outages in the winter as I do in the warmer months (in fall it’s not unusual to have some weeks without grid power). I did however get a freak outage before the last round of storms and cold. The overhead lines coming up the mountain to me have wetlands at the bottom, it appears a sudden extreme drop in temper…

> in fall it’s not unusual to have some weeks without grid power This blows my mind. The last time I lost power was ~2 years ago and it lasted maybe 5 days. I know others in my area were out for longer. I suffered for a few days but ended up going down to Toledo and getting a hotel, thankfully only for one night as it was on the next day. Outside of that, I can only thing of maybe ~100 hours total my power was out ov…

Yeah, it’s true though. The most annoying outages we’ve had are when poles get damaged and need a full replacement.

A couple years ago we had a black locust tree split and break the T on the top of telephone pole across street. It didn’t take the power out itself, but the utility felt it was safer to shut it off until the pole was replaced. Took 3 days as they sent the crew from texas to NJ.

My parents place had 2 pole replacements on their driveway, each time in different years it was same guy sent up from Alabama. Each time took days.

This area I just don’t think they prioritize getting power restored quickly, population density too low, most own generators, and we don’t have medical stuff nearby. Better to send workers from regions where pay is lower, that’s my guess. I had to file complaints with BPU last year as they fired the meter readers and estimated the bills for like 7 months before installing smart meters.