Amazingly, it seems likely Houston will see snow Friday, the city’s earliest ever white stuff. Forecasters are still hedging their bets given all of the puzzle pieces that must fall into place for it to snow in Houston, but now say the most likely scenario is 2 to 4 inches of widespread snowfall beginning Friday afternoon. Some areas may get half a foot.23 degrees tomorrow night. Houses aren't insulated against cold weather, so there will be lots of busted pipes in attics and garages come Saturday morning. Plumbers, drywall repairers and insurance companies will be busy. And if the forecast comes true, I'll say the NWS did an amazing job of pegging this storm 5 days in advance.
Note to myself: Turn the water main off in the morning and get ready to kiss half my plants goodbye. Hope my orange trees make it.
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Those of you in the snow belt, be sure to watch the video feeds from the Houston news outlets tomorrow. You'll be laughing your keisters off as you watch Houstonians freak out over a few flakes of snow and see spinouts and cars sliding backwards on overpasses.
I had no idea it got that cold in Houston. I thought it might be like here where most houses don't even have any heating as there's little point.
We don't need the heat on very often, Tom. This is a very rare event.
Living in Hawaii, right now you see snow every day. It's odd to say that. :-)
Gorebal warming indeed.
I will be watching the news from H-town today - it is always entertaining for me to watch Southerners drive in the snow. I usually watch when they get an inch of snow in Atlanta, it really is funny how nobody can handle the snow down there while it is just a part of life up here in the arctic.
My family had several orange and satsuma trees, and we'd actually cover the trees with blankets, using poles to get the blankets over the top. Then we'd pile dirt and leaves against the trunk as high as we could go, so even if we lost some of the tree, we'd get regrowth.
It was a pain doing that in a cold north wind, but it did save some trees from extensive damage on a 20-something night. I'm not sure the smudge pot trick we used in 30 F nights will work in the temps you're looking at.
Oh, and agreed that the NWS did a great job so far. They usually have a lot of trouble with these events that are to the far end of the statistical curve, but not this time.
I've lived and worked on coastal New England most of my life. There are still piles of old, uninsulated houses.
Anyways, your house mass will keep the pipes from freezing for a day or so with a cold front coming through.
Another trick is let the water drip. As slow as you can make it. I'm not sure why this works, but it does. For a while anyways.
If you do turn off your mains, then open and try to drain as much as you can. Thus even if you get frozen pipes, there might just be enough air/space for the water to expand and not burst a pipe
If you turn your water main off, be sure to open all your faucets too. Relieving the pressure allows for a little more expansion should there be any freezing in the pipes.
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