Good morning!!!!

[wngsprd]

-14 celsius ...still dropping and still windy (7F). Just looked at the temp up on the mountain, and it is -9F.

Hope everybody keeps their electricity. I've only seen it blink here once, yesterday while I was roasting coffee...was afraid I'd lose a batch, but it held up...drinking it now. Plan to give a lot away tomorrow.

Tested out a different set of layers for hiking in extreme cold once it got down to about 0F chill factor late yesterday...only wore thin pants on legs, no layers, because it makes hiking up steep sections easier. Definitely will have to wear a heavier pants when this much wind...knees were stiff by the end of my hike.

Waiting for son to arrive from New York any time now. Will help him unload.

 

[scootr]

Merry Christmas Eve morning to all. Prayers for all of you in the deep freeze today. Balmy weather here. Hardly looks or feels like Christmas but compared to negative temperatures we'll take it.

 

[daugen]

good morning all
4 degrees here, bathroom floor mighty cold
regular heater and three electric heaters running, doing fine.

great xmas lights Scootr.

hot coffee going down nicely, should be a clear cold day today

 

[IXLR8]

With my flickering power situation, I don't trust the power to stay on long enough to brew a pot of coffee.

 

[KilroyJC]

happy Christmas Eve Morning!

God is giving us another chance to get it right (or at least not screw up too badly) and we will celebrate His Greatest Gift shortly!

currently 2F, went to 1F at 3AM.

Here is a handy-dandy website for temperature info near you - you just need to know the four-character designation For the nearest airport weather station ( for example, MKY is Marco Island Executive Airport, KMKY is the weather station at the airport).

https://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/weather/current/KMKY.html

Just swap in your characters where “KMKY” is in the above URL.

Spent most of the day in the kitchen, made traditional kapusta (roughly equal parts of fresh shredded cabbage, sauer kraut, and sliced onions, seasoned with garlic and rendered salt pork lard and a big chunk of bone-in bacon) which is an all-day stirring event, and garlic smashed potatoes, (which is about an30-minute affair).

Today will be gingerbread house building - the couch in front of the fire was calling Mrs. yesterday

HAPPY HEALTHY DULL BORING CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE!!!

 

[KilroyJC]

With my flickering power situation, I don't trust the power to stay on long enough to brew a pot of coffee.

You need one of these, just in case:

 

[txdon]

Merry Christmas Eve morning!

14˚F, (still dropping slowly) no wind and the sunny skies will finally bring temps above freezing after noon. Gas pressure is still good but the test will be around 8am when everyone wakes up and starts using ng heat. The electricity has not been off and the Texas grid is holding at the expense of shifting residential ng for making electricity. Instead of back-up generators this cold snap electric space heaters are the smart back-up.

The "Farm" is open today and I'm glad my Christmas season employment stipulation was to be off on Christmas Eve. However Monday's work temp will start out freezing so next year I'll have to add another stipulation - will not work when temps are freezing.

If ng pressure stays good pancakes for breakfast.

 

[Buppies]

Got down to 0 last night now one still nice breeze

The dams are hydro electric designed to make power mostly. Claytor lake is on the New River Smith Mountain and Leesville on the Roanoke River

Hope everyone has a nice Christmas Eve, remember the reason for the season

Prayers for all riptides and family, Lou and family Toppop family, Roy’s family all others silent or spoken our our Country

 

[m7040]

21˚
This article seems to cover that time period.

"Still, one lesson Texas could take from the 1970s is that what seems clever today may not remain so tomorrow. A classic example involves the trade-offs between coal and natural gas power. In the mid-’70s, convinced that gas supplies were running out, state regulators ordered electric utilities to reduce their use of the fuel. So they started burning coal instead."

On Energy, a Lesson for Texas From the 1970s

Unrest in the Middle East, rising oil prices and frustration with federal energy policy — for many Texans, today’s headlines must seem like déjà vu. While the situation is far less severe than the aftermath of the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the parallels are unmistakable.

www.texastribune.org

That was part of the discussion at that time. TU had several coal fired plants but the bulk of their power generation was Natural Gas fired with some of the plants able to switch to fuel oil. Visited all their power plants during the study. Drove 3000 miles just to get around to all from Permian Basin to East Texas etc

 

[LouNY]

Morning all,
First, Thanks for all the well wishes for my brother.
We made it through this "super" storm fairly well,
We are sitting at a whopping 5F this morning with no wind,
so while it's cold it's not sub zero and windy so fairly good all things considered.
Most of the ice got washed away by the rain and warm weather.
The winds did create some extra work, had to clean up some fence lines that had trees go down on them.
Many trees and power lines went down in the area, but my power never flickered. A few trees and lots of limbs scattered about
in the yard but the driveway stayed mostly clear just small stuff.
We will know in a couple of days how the cattle stood up to the rapid change, but all the initial results are looking good.