Looks Like The Global Warmin' Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost!

[planosteve]

Especially in North Texas. Are you all still OK? Listening to Red Eye Radio it sounds pretty bad.
Doesn't ERCOT stand for "Energy RELIABILITY Council of Texas"? Boy, was that a crock!
They need to change that to EUCOT!

[John in Plano]

My daughter and her family live in McKinney Sunday night they were informed of low natural gas pressure in their service area and it could cause issues. Their furnace wasn't impacted luckily. Late Sunday the rolling black outs started.
Power out for 3-4 hours, back on for 15 or so minutes then back off.
They don't have power this morning.

Son and family had frozen pipes yesterday morning in their bathroom they found them before anything burst. Oddly it was the hot water going to the shower and sink.

Granddaughter called us yesterday morning needing toilet paper and a bottle of the wine she had left here a few weeks ago. We delivered them. 23 year olds don't plan ahead.

[planosteve]

I'm watching Channel 8 on line this morning. Wow! It's even worse than I thought. I haven't seen Pete Delkus for awhile.

Here's what ERCOT said:

So while having Texas' full wind-generating capacity online would help, the problems with meeting demand appear to lie elsewhere. An ERCOT director told Bloomberg that problems were widespread across generating sources, including coal, natural gas, and even nuclear plants. In the past, severe cold has caused US supplies of natural gas to be constrained, as use in residential heating competes with its use in generating electricity. But that doesn't explain the shortfalls in coal and nuclear, and the ERCOT executive wasn't willing to speculate.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02 ... HVmH1DqNIY

So, they don't even know what the problem is!!!

[GFB]

Definitely scratching Texas once and for all from my retirement state list.

[planosteve]

We're nice and toasty here in Northern Colorado. Even though it's a blue state, they aren't crazy. They know they have to prepare for cold weather every winter. In Plano I don't think it had even snowed for the last 5 years or so.
I remember being cursed when pointing out that Algore was full of sh*t.

[jellowrestling]

Definitely scratching Texas once and for all from my retirement state list.

Something like this seems to happen about every 40 years. Something similar happened in 1979 (New Year's Day), but the temps never got below zero in DFW, IIRC. My dad said there was a similar freezing snap in the early 40s. Most years, we don't get any ice or snow. It's much more likely to be 70 this time of year than 25. Average high in this area is 62 in February, which is the same as San Francisco. San Jose is 63.

[Mark]

Definitely scratching Texas once and for all from my retirement state list.

Something like this seems to happen about every 40 years. Something similar happened in 1979 (New Year's Day), but the temps never got below zero in DFW, IIRC. My dad said there was a similar freezing snap in the early 40s. Most years, we don't get any ice or snow. It's much more likely to be 70 this time of year than 25. Average high in this area is 62 in February, which is the same as San Francisco. San Jose is 63.

Yep, nearly always when we get ice or snow, it's all gone within 24 hours.

This week is a generational event. I'm treating as an extra week of vacation.

[GFB]

Definitely scratching Texas once and for all from my retirement state list.

Something like this seems to happen about every 40 years. Something similar happened in 1979 (New Year's Day), but the temps never got below zero in DFW, IIRC. My dad said there was a similar freezing snap in the early 40s. Most years, we don't get any ice or snow. It's much more likely to be 70 this time of year than 25. Average high in this area is 62 in February, which is the same as San Francisco. San Jose is 63.

When I moved to California in 1980, friends told me to take the “Southern route”..since it was late November.

That had me driving right across Texas..it was horribly cold, and I wasn’t ready..so it must have happened two years in a row.

[planosteve]

It's one thing to have millions of people loose their power. It's another to have it happen at the worst possible moment which is during record breaking ice and cold. But, this is what they have to plan for, the worst possible event.

[Twiggler]

Definitely scratching Texas once and for all from my retirement state list.

Something like this seems to happen about every 40 years. Something similar happened in 1979 (New Year's Day), but the temps never got below zero in DFW, IIRC. My dad said there was a similar freezing snap in the early 40s. Most years, we don't get any ice or snow. It's much more likely to be 70 this time of year than 25. Average high in this area is 62 in February, which is the same as San Francisco. San Jose is 63.

Jello, as a plumber I think in 83 it got down into the teens for over 30 days in a row. When we finally got back to our job on lower greenville....we repaired over a 100 split pipes.
I can imagine what is going to happen down in parts of Houston where they have gone without power for days. Plumbers are probably rejoicing....1 way to stimulate an economy.

[jellowrestling]

Definitely scratching Texas once and for all from my retirement state list.

Something like this seems to happen about every 40 years. Something similar happened in 1979 (New Year's Day), but the temps never got below zero in DFW, IIRC. My dad said there was a similar freezing snap in the early 40s. Most years, we don't get any ice or snow. It's much more likely to be 70 this time of year than 25. Average high in this area is 62 in February, which is the same as San Francisco. San Jose is 63.

Jello, as a plumber I think in 83 it got down into the teens for over 30 days in a row. When we finally got back to our job on lower greenville....we repaired over a 100 split pipes.
I can imagine what is going to happen down in parts of Houston where they have gone without power for days. Plumbers are probably rejoicing....1 way to stimulate an economy.

I had to look that one up (I was in Nacogdoches in '83; it got cold, but nothing like that). It was below 32 degrees for 13 days in a row, starting on December 18th and ending on December 30th. The high was 55 on Dec. 31st, and by January 5th, the high was 76. But that was the coldest December on record. Thanks for mentioning this: I was unaware of it.

We were in Orlando just before Christmas about 20 years ago when the temp dropped to 23. It was glorious: we had Disneyworld pretty much all to ourselves for 5 or 6 hours.

http://www.dfwweather.org/wxblog/?p=74

[planosteve]

I arrived in Aug 82. I remember it was hot! We lived in Duncanville. I don't remember the cold snap in 83. Probably those brain cells have died.

[planosteve]

That Texas is short of energy is nuts. They have more than any state other than Alaska. And it's run by the Republicans! They need to impeach Abbott. Throw the bum out!