The AM Forum

...people are throwing shoes at Al Gore....(David Letterman 1/14/09)

-6 F/-21C this morning in Stonington, Ct ...thankfully the car did start!

Yup, the ol' Ford Ranger (15 years old) started first try. But the first sounds were a bit........ anxious!

-13.2F in Marblehead, OH. this AM.

-18 F here in Fort Wayne, IN and the van started!  Must be a Global Warming anomaly Hi Hi OM  ::) :P

73,  Jack, W9GT

I guess we're a bit spoiled here..........  +10F here in Baltimore

Thermometer says -24 below here (Orono, Maine) and not even going to try and start the car.
Gary

Bright spot:

Thursday was the midpoint of meteorological winter.

<-----Doesn't that 304 look nice and warm?

... a lawyer had his hands in his OWN pockets  ;D

+3° F in sunny TN this morning.

Cold snap had all the t-storms quenched last night.  75m background noise was a steady hiss, like VHF, after activity subsided.

Tuned across the longwave broadcast band last night.  About 0500 GMT, Europe 1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe_1) in Germany on 183 kHz was perfectly readable, at times entertainment quality. Allouis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longwave_transmitter_Allouis) in France was a close second.

But at times there were some heavy static crashes.  I didn't bother to check the lightning map to see where the storms were, but none were audible on HF.


Which, by definition, should average out over the long term to be the coldest day of the year.

-18 F  here in Central Verminmont last night at 11pm.

Could have made yellow hail if I stood on the roof.

Don't know what the temp was this morning...
The meter said -10 F... but the sun was beating right on it, so not quite accurate.

    It was -6 outside the QTH here in Rock Cave. The car started much to my surprise. Sure glad I installed the woodolene stove. Keeps the shack WARM!

Buddly,
My old 94 Ranger didn't flinch at the -8 cold at 4AM. Thermometer says we hit -10 this morning but I was on the road then.  I put a new starter, battery and alternator in it about a year and a half ago.  Started up no sweat.  Got 240K on it. Driving was another story though.  Suspension was stiff as can be and heard noises I never heard before from it.

It was -35F outside Cedar Rapids this morning.  The kids have been off of school 3 days this week first from snow, then from the cold.  Monday is MLK Day.  The XYL will need a vacation come Tuesday.
73 - Dave

A morning I thank God I don't work for skrotorola JS masters

My furnace decided to go south last night. I noticed around 23:00 that it was getting a bit chilly in the house so I looked at the thermostat; it was set for 66 but the temp was 61. Checked the furnace & discovered it was trying to got thru its startup cycle but it would hit a fault & the CPU would abort the start before the gas valve & igniter were activated. Found that one of the differential pressure switches across the fire chamber was intermittant. Had to use 3 electric heaters & the kitchen oven to keep the house from freezing during the night. They did a pretty good job because the house was at 57 degrees this morning when I saw -1 on the outside thermometer. Got the furnace guy to come over & he is trying to locate a pressure switch.

Had my first robin sighting today. I see them eating the berries on a tree in my front every year when a group of them migrates from the south early. Bet this small flock is kicking themselves in the ass for getting here in this cold. I will feed them till the bugs come out & they can find their own food.

Scrotozola is gonna experience some shrinkage in your temperatures...

Hey Bob,
You can't take a day off that will cut into your new Boss's stock award.

-13 here this morning in No. Weare, NH.

Concord NH broke the -19 from 1984 this date with -24 this morning. 

Wicked cold. 

Yup, it's been mighty toasty here for the past few days.  School's beem closed for the past few days.  I so LOVE starting my car when it's 13 below!!  Yesterday, we never even got above 4 below.  This morning, it actually got colder as I drove south to work.  By the time I got to work, it was 21 below!!  Now it's a balmy 0 degrees, and we're supposed to get snow tonight and tomorrow.  Go figure!

73,
Ellen - AF9J

-19 here in Central IL this morning but at least the roads are finally clear of snow and ice.  Due to the snow/ice earlier in the week I had to take the pickup in to the university and with this new ultra low sulfur diesel (generally blended with some bio-diesel) there have been a lot of people having gelling problems even with additives. Fortunately I made it home and back with no issues but I was a bit nervous the whole way and changing a fuel filter on the side of the road at 5 to 15 below would not be my idea of fun.  Several of the local school districts cited the reason for closing was due to issues with keeping their buses running during this cold weather.

I drove the CTS instead this morning and with synthetic 5W30 oil it starts and idles smoothly without a whimper and no worries about gelling.  But all things considered, winter was much nicer on the Mississippi coast.  This afternoon it hit 0 and felt absolutely nice, I have been in the midwest too long!

WQ9E

...it will freeze the balls off a brass monkey. (explanation below)

-16 here in coastal Maine at 4:30AM.
Friend inland reported -20.  :-[



"Freezing the Balls Off the Brass Monkey," a Navy Phrase about Cannon Balls-Fiction!

    Summary of the eRumor
This piece of alleged history explains that in the olden days of sailing ships, cannon balls were stacked on the decks on brass plates called "monkeys."  The plates had indentions in them that held the balls on the bottoms of the stacks.  Brass, however, expands and contracts with the temperature and if it got cold enough, the cannon balls could fall...giving real foundation to the phrase "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!"

    The Truth
According to the United States Navy Historical Center, this is a legend of the sea without historical justification.  The center has researched this because of the questions it gets and says the term "brass monkey" and a vulgar reference to the effect of cold on the monkey's extremities, appears to have originated in the book "Before the Mast" by C.A. Abbey.  It was said that it was so cold that it would "freeze the tail off a brass monkey."   The Navy says there is no evidence that the phrase had anything to do with ships or ships with cannon balls.
A real example of the eRumor as it has appeared on the Internet:

 
Subject: brass monkey
 In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters
 carried iron cannons. Those cannon fired round iron cannon balls. It was
 necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon. But how to prevent them
 from rolling about the deck?

 The best storage method devised was a square based pyramid with one
 ball on top, resting on four resting on nine which rested on sixteen.
 Thus, a supply of thirty cannon balls could be stacked in a small area
 right next to the cannon.

 There was only one problem -- how to prevent the bottom layer from
 sliding/rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate
 called a "Monkey" with sixteen round indentations. But, if this plate
 was made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution
 to the rusting problem was to make "Brass Monkeys."

 Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much
 faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped
 too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon
 balls would come right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally,
 "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!"

Minus 12 in Saratoga NY this morning at 7am. No big deal, being retired. The wife and I went out to a movie around 1 pm when it was up to 14 with bright sun and no wind it didn't feel to bad.

Steve
WA2TTP

Heh, heh. I just got in contact with an old elementary school friend recently. He had just finished up a 27-1/2 year career with the US Army. He is from central PA, his wife is from N.H. His last duty station was spent at Ft. Drumm, NY for 4-1/2 years. When he retired, he and his wife said, "Screw it!" and moved to Miami, FL. ;)

It was -4 here but soon the sun will be coming in and it will be too hot to sit at the computer.
OPEC monster sucking fuel the past 3 days.

Had to turn off the heat pump and use OPEC gold.

So cold I saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets.

It has been reported that hell ACTUALLY froze over this week.

Yep, and that was a good joke when I posted it in this thread yesterday too:

;D ;D
-Charles
ps 50 degrees today in southern MO!

I'm freezing....Back to 68 and heat running 75 feels so much better when the sun is out.

Its so cold here that the plate in the final would not dip.

A lot warmer this morning but snowing like a mo fo.

It was so cold...
... had to cut a hole in the air just to get outside!

... the match flame froze before i could light the stove.

12" of fluffy white stuff.  Snowblower on the fritz. I'll have to bite the bullet and git'er dun...

Used to work in the energy planing business,
Over the years the average coldest day in New England was January 20th. Probably a bit of a lag as things continue to cool down.

It' So Cold That....I can smell Alaska from my house.

for the 1st time in 30yrs the rotor done froze on the yagi..pointed south..and today while snowblowing the 12in of newly fallen snow..I thought i heard the sound of the ice cream truck going thru the neighborhood only to discover it was just the crushed rocks flying out the chute..the cold made the metal chute sound like a bell.....on the 17th or was that the 16th?..we got down to minus 19degs..colder than a witches chest appendage!!    73 de DAVE         

Heck this is march WX in the twin Cities.

Impossible .... the Browns ain't in the Super Bowl!

It was cool here in Amman to day at 15 C but the wind was blowing so hard in Madaba, that a chicken laid the same egg three times!

I am spoiled on this work trip to the middle east - weather wise that is!

I finally got a day off on Saturday and another engineer and I did a road trip and visited a Roman hot spring near the Dead Sea. Very Cool - I mean Hot. We were several hundred feet below sea level and it was shirt sleeve weather.

Mike WU2D