New Year's Eve, we started having storms move in. They weren't bad, just rain and a little wind. Temps were abnormally warm, maybe 70 degrees which to me means a possibility of tornadoes especially with a cold front directly behind it. But there were no tornado warnings, so I didn't trip on it and went to bed at my usual time, 9 PM because I'm old.
Like I said, it was windy but not too bad.
Right at the stroke of midnight, the weather radio went off saying there was a severe thunderstorm warning with a possibility of tornadoes. I got up muttering something about not being in the mood for that kind of bullshit, turned off the radio and went back to sleep.
Slept in 'til about 6 AM New Year's Day. It was raining and still windy, but nothing to worry about. Later in the morning, it got darker, the rain increased and the wind seriously picked up with sustained gusts of maybe 30 mph.
About noon, that shit got serious. The sky opened up and it started getting downright breezy. About a half hour later, the wind was howling, rain was coming down in sheets and as I was standing there in the living room, I kept expecting to hear a tree come crashing down on the house. I bet our wind was blowing at 60 mph or more.
Then our power went out.
No big deal, it was still unreasonably warm, my Kindle was charged up and we had sandwich stuff to eat - we weren't going to starve nor freeze to death. Hell, it wasn't even going to be uncomfortable - matter of fact I was kinda grateful because no power meant I wasn't going to have to eat black-eyed peas that Lisa insists on fixing for New Year's Day dinner every year. I'm not a big fan of those fuckers.
The wind finally calmed down some about 2 in the afternoon, so I walked out to check on my roof, and there were deadfall branches everywhere - my yard, my neighbor's place, and a big one from my neighbor's tree partially blocking the road, which I moved into the ditch before somebody ran into it.
About 5:30 PM I figured I'd better go out and haul my generator up from the shed. If we didn't have power back on by 7, I'd fire it up for a couple hours and plug the freezer and refrigerator into it so none of our meats would defrost.
My shop generator weighs 128 pounds, so I loaded it into my lawn trailer, then hooked that up to my mower to haul it to the house and promptly got everything stuck in the mud.
Fifteen minutes after I got the mower unstuck and back in the shed, pulling the little trailer with my generator up to the back porch by hand, the power came back on. I should've brought that generator up hours ago if that's all it took.
The next morning when I took that asshole dog Jack out for his morning energy dump, I saw that I had a shitload of dead branches everywhere down at the treeline. The biggest chunk was probably 7-8 feet long and 9 inches across at the widest point, and it was good 75 feet from the tree it came off - that's how strong the wind was.
Yesterday afternoon, the temps started seriously dropping and first we got rain, then sleet right after dusk, then snow last night. This morning there was about 2 inches of snow on the ground.
I finally made it into town a couple hours ago for the first time since New Year's Eve. There were a couple large trees down, but no property damage that I could see and the talk of the town was the cause of the power outage. Depending on who I was talking to, it was either a tree smacking into a substation or a lightning strike at the same substation. And again, depending on who I was talking to, either the entire county or just half of it lost power.
Happy New Year!
Scary start to the new year. Maybe you used up most of your 'Bad Weather' karma right up.
ReplyDelete...on the bright side, you weren't in the exurbs of Boulder, CO.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you guys made it through.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year.
Damn it man, that's a fucked up start. It can only get better from there, right....
ReplyDeleteWell hopefully so, glad everyone is OK.
JD
Black-eyed peas - I am not a fan of black-eyed peas and ham, either. Who wants to eat dirt? I have two remedies for that problem and still get my black-eyed peas in. One is Texas/Cowboy Caviar and the other is a Persian dish called Ghormeh Sabzi. The first one is basically a salsa and the second one is a stew with beef and spinach served over rice.
ReplyDeleteHey! Welcome back! That doesn't sound too bad, More annoying than anything.
ReplyDeleteI was able to see and hear the storm but it just missed Scottsville. We did get the snow.
ReplyDeleteSteve in KY
Black-eyed peas, country ham, boiled cabbage and cornbread is a tradition on New Year’s Day. Mama always said it brought good luck for the year. I always enjoy the meal but understand that not everybody does. Alternatives are field peas or purple hull peas. They look like black-eyed peas, but they’re mellower in flavor.
ReplyDeleteI like my cabbage smothered, bacon and sausage drippings to sweat and saute the trinity, onion, celery and bellpepper, then add cabbage and mix until done. Can't beat that with black-eyed peas and Mexican cornbread.
DeleteLuck and money is the saying around here
JD
Up here it is sauerkraut, pork loin/shoulder, beef hotdogs mixed in and mashed potatoes every New Year's Day.
DeleteFirst of all Happy New Year to you, Miss Lisa and TA Jack. My tornado alert went off around 0330-0400 but it was for another county. It stormed all night here in SC and right around 0500 we got another earthquake (2.7+ according to USGS). This is like the 6th or 8th one in the last week all around 2.3 to 2.7+
ReplyDeleteI've got a small dead tree that went down in the pond and should be able to get it out with the Kubota and there's a bigger dead pine blocking one of the trails on the property that'll have to be chainsawed up before I can move it to the burn pile. All last week it was in the upper 70s to low 80s, today.... 50. Again, Happy New Year to all y'all.
I'm just on the East side of the Appalachian mountains from Ken and that makes a big difference. Lots of rain and moderate winds, but not much damage.
ReplyDeleteSnow this morning in Canton....
ReplyDeleteNortheast of the ATL....
Hello Winter....my old friend....
Ed357
Yeah, well, I feel your pain. I got diagnosed with glaucoma this morning, promptly locked my keys in the farking truck and waited almost 3 hours at 16 degrees temperature for the farking locksmith. Get to the pharmacy to find out the eye doc hadn't called in the prescription for eye drops like he said, so I called his office and he's out to lunch. At least it isn't snowing.....today......yet. But we could really use the moisture and wouldn't mind some snow so there's that.
ReplyDeleteWhat's that thing you always do about farking Monday?
same here bro' lots of wind and tree limbs down. i'm gonna sell all of my pine timber, 30 acres, all of it and get that shit away from the house. i'm getting to old for dragging limbs.
ReplyDeletepine brings only 12 dollars a ton now in my area but it's better than having to hire someone to take them down. gonna have it chipped, they will get the tree, limbs and any hedge bushes around it and you don't have the mess of just logging left behind.
i have seen it done and it leaves a place fairly clean other than the stumps
From the Knoxville TN area, we experienced some of that, especially the high winds. Never lost power but we're prepared if that happens. Picked up lots of branches from my yard and the neighbor's pool tent is shredded and I'm picking up pieces of that too.
ReplyDeleteHappy new year Witecutter!
ReplyDeleteWe got about 2 foot of snow last night at my place. At least 4 since the beginning of Christmas week. Another 1.5 footor so expected the week. Then rain. Yay.
No snow in Houston since it was about 85 degrees New Years Eve. We did endure about 6-7 hours of fireworks though. These fuckers started before dark, shit enough already. What we did get was a fallen live wire from the power poll a little bit down the street and then some cold ass wind Sunday morning. Going from mid 80s to sub 32 is drastic in South Texas. Anyway, the wind was so strong Saturday night that my recycle can was empty Sunday morning. Not very special except the recycle guy didn't run Saturday. Mine and everyone else's recycle shit was all up the street all over that damn place. Haven't had a recycle run since the Saturday before Christmas and won't have one until this coming Saturday (I hope) so, it's their fault our neighborhood looks like Fred Sanfords place.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why the genny is on my covered back porch on standby at all times. Glad you made it thru, Kenny. Ohio Guy
ReplyDeleteEh, no big deal. Like I said, temps were warm, we had food to eat and if it was prolonged, I had a generator and plenty of gas on hand. It was more of a pain in the ass than anything else.
DeleteThe only one that suffered was that asshole dog Jack and that was from me tripping over his underfoot ass in the candle light.
Welcome back Kenny. One of my regular reads (Naughty Bits and Bits and Pieces) lost Jon, the author. Suddenly my morning reads have gotten seriously shorter. Please don't go anywhere (other than town, the chicken shed and to walk that asshole dog Jack) for a while. Oh, and the usual Sundays off.
ReplyDeleteThank you
Shit, Jonco's was the first blog I ever read, and he inspired me to start this one.
DeleteI'm sorry to hear that.
Hau'oli makahiki hou former Island Boy!
ReplyDeleteInstead of sending you a bottle of Okolehau I caught a couple of waves in Waikiki in your & Knuckledraggin's honor.
don't feel bad i'm still sitting in the dark. just 4 inches of wet snow, trees down for hundred miles, 43k w/o power. actually i broke out the little genny at dark. just cranked it a week ago, on the first pull. today yanked my guts out but it finally caught. happy newyear!
ReplyDeleteGlad y'all came though okay!
ReplyDeleteReally glad to hear that you and Miss Lisa have came through the storms relatively unscathed and inconvenienced, Kenny.
ReplyDeleteGlad to have you back too, like many others I am sure, I had withdrawals from not having your site active for a week(ish), but was happy for you that you were taking a needed break.
We just went through, what for us is a typical winter windstorm.
I was one of the lucky ones in our Valley, in that my power never so much as flickered, much less went out entirely.
I got up an hour ago, and for the first time in days, it is eerily quiet outside, and is now -16.
Happy New Year to you and Miss Lisa...
Tim in AK