We're supposed to go into town today ("town" being Albuquerque in this case) to get some tests done at the med center, pick up some medications, take care of some errands, and possibly attend a literary event for the author of "The Feminist and the Cowboy" this evening, but when I woke up this morning, I noted a distinct chill in the air -- despite the fact that the heat was on at its usual 68°.
Something must have happened.
Looking outside, the snow is glittering brightly in the morning sun. It's gorgeous, but...
We had a fair amount of snow yesterday, enough to make a small snowman in the front which was fun. It wasn't all that cold, maybe in the high 20's or so, and there wasn't a lot of snow and ice build up to deal with on the roads. The prediction was that temps would drop into the high single digits overnight, so we took the usual precautions against frozen pipes and such and went to bed.
Well, the hot water pipe is frozen in the bathroom, even though (we thought) we left a trickle flowing through the pipes overnight (there's still hot water in the kitchen; it's usually the other way around when we go through a Big Freeze). When I checked the temp on the internets a few minutes ago, it was -6°. Yikes.
That cold a temperature was not expected. We're getting used to the fact that weather predictions in New Mexico are rarely on the mark, especially with regard to timing of weather events and temperatures -- whether hot or cold.
We're not used to such bitterly cold temperatures, however, and the fact that there will probably be a good deal of ice on the roads today and tonight may make us rethink our planned expedition and postpone it till things warm up a little bit.
It's one of the less familiar balancing acts we're becoming accustomed to out here on the Frontier...
I thought I heard the rain again outside my window. Cold. Damp. Dreary. Yes, it has rained in June in the Central Valley from time to time in the many years I've lived here, though the incidents are rare and the amount of rain is usually slight.
But despite the constant official cries of "drought!", this part of California has actually been in an extended wet spell. As I noted some time back, it's as if this section of the state had been bodily moved a thousand miles north. This is Seattle weather. No, it's British Columbia-southern Alaska weather.
It's not just the frequency of rain, it's the continued low temperatures (well, for here, anyway, in the 50's and 60's) and the sense that it's not going to stop.
I was in the backyard yesterday, "puttering" as they say. Well, we've had some work done over the last couple of years or so -- some trees cut down and heavily cut back, a new fence put up, the exterior of the house painted, and I've been working on landscaping the back, something that couldn't be done when it was lost in the shade of bushes that had been planted when the house was new (1940) and had been left to become huge trees. Nothing would grow back there but the rankest weeds. So for years, we essentially just left it. Once the trees were cut down, suddenly the possibilities of actual landscaping were opened up, and I've been planting lawn, flowers, making paths and sitting areas, etc, having a grand time really. But yesterday I was pulling ivy and some other vining plant off the house. The east and south side of the house were becoming buried in vinage after less than a year since the house was painted. There's been English ivy in the back since we've been here, but it has never almost covered over the house like this. And the other vine (I'm not sure what it is) has been here for a quite a while, but never grown to this extent nor has it ever come this close to entirely covering the whole east side of the house.
As I was pulling this stuff down, I noticed how extraordinarily lush the foliage was. The leaves are broad and dark, glossy green, and there are new shoots all over the place. It's been less than a year since the ivy and vines that were on the house before were pulled down to paint the place, and they've all grown back and much, much more besides.
This can only be attributed to the rains, rains, and more rains. The other trees and plants in the back have also grown remarkably in the past year, even in the last couple of weeks. And it is raining again today.
Yet this is the Dry Season. Things should be turning golden and brown and brittle. That's the course of life for the native plants around here. Come May, they're drying up, and by June they are completely dry. There would ordinarily be no rain in the summer at all, and relatively frequent irrigation is necessary just to keep a lawn alive, non-native plants green, and flowers blooming. But we're used to it, know how it goes, and we're adapted to water conservation (after all, we've been in a "drought" for years now -- just recently declared "over.")
This year? Hardly had to turn the hose on at all. Rain is that frequent. And the green stuff has responded to the rains gleefully and spectacularly.
The reason for the change in the weather is said to be warmer temperatures in the Arctic Ocean which have resulted in much less ice cover and less enduring sea ice which in turn has caused the cold weather patterns that typically circle the north pole to wander southward through Siberia and North America, looping down over the Pacific and drenching California again and again. It is said to be an active demonstration of the consequences of Global Warming.
So far, for this part of California, it is A Year Without A Summer. That will likely change, of course, and we will be in searing heat and dryness. But not till July, maybe even August. You never know anymore.
The irony here is that though the current weather pattern in these parts is thought to be a factor of Global Warming, even though it's cold and wet, these are the conditions that can lead, in due time -- and not a long time, either -- to an Ice Age. It was recognized back in the 1950's that Ice Ages in the Northern Hemisphere depend on warmer ocean temperatures in the Arctic which were thought to be due to changing Gulf Stream flows.
The illustration below, taken from American Heritage magazine, April 1960, explains how Maurice Ewing and William Donn thought it worked back in the day. In other words, "warming" leads to ice.
Fellow named Daniel came out from Public Works yesterday to turn the water on and stick around while I checked for leaks. The stories he told, jeeze. He said that there were broken pipes and flooding all over the place during The Cold, and he was running frantically from house to house turning off water because of busted pipes.
No one right around our place had that problem he said, but it was just crazy for days.
As for our place, when he turned the water on, immediately the meter started going indicating there was a leak or an open faucet somewhere. I checked inside again, and there was no sign at all of leaks in the kitchen or laundry room, no sound of water spraying under the house. When I went to check the bathroom, however, I heard that tell-tale sound, and my heart sunk for a moment. The sound was coming from the toilet, so I checked the tank, and sure enough, the fill valve was split and water was spraying out, even though the tank was full. I turned it off with the valve where the pipe entered the room, and the sound stopped. Went to tell Daniel what I'd found, and said, "Did you turn the water off at the toilet?" I said yeah. "Well, the meter has stopped turning. I think you found the leak."
Really? That simple? "Water isn't running now," he said. "So I think that was probably it."
I just sort of stood there dumbfounded for a minute while he told more tales of what was going on during The Cold. Temps actually got down to -32 he said, and there were at least ten days (rather, nights) with temps at -15 or below. Just brutal. This has never happened in this area before, and even though there was warning it was going to be cold, people weren't prepared for how cold it was going to be. Luckily no one around here lost gas or electricity unlike the unfortunates up north of Santa Fe or down by Alamogordo or Silver City. But pipes were freezing and breaking everywhere. I told him that the previous owner had replaced the house plumbing with PEX; it's not supposed to break in a freeze. But at temperatures that low? Who could say?
What happened was that some of the plastic in fixtures inside the house had split. It wasn't just the fill valve in the toilet. I also found that the spray valve on the kitchen sink had split. We keep the heat on in the house, at a relatively low temperature, 50 degrees or so, when we're not here, but I'm sure it can get colder in the bathroom and kitchen because the heat doesn't circulate all that well. Though our heat is gas fired, it's from a heater in the living room that functions like a big parlor stove. It's warm when you're close to it! But when you get to some of the peripheral rooms, there can be a distinct chill, and I know the pipes -- even the drains -- froze in the kitchen once while I was here and the heat was on. So, what might happen in a Real Cold Snap is anyone's guess.
What did happen may well have saved us a lot of other grief. When the fill valve split in the toilet, the water just ran continuously but safely. It was draining out as fast as it was pouring in. That kept water flowing through all the pipes during The Cold so there was no chance of them freezing. What a wonder.
I'm kind of gobsmacked and very grateful. Simple repairs took part of an afternoon, and that, as they say, was that.
Santa Fe Plaza from a live webcam shot around 8:00am 02/04/11
The Governor -- not entirely insane Susana Martinez(R) -- has closed the state offices and has asked New Mexicans to save energy in the face of an outrageous cold snap, lack of natural gas for heating, and electrical grid breakdowns in Texas and elsewhere. The situation in Northern New Mexico looks dire, what with no natural gas supplies throughout the area north of Santa Fe and south as far as Bernalillo (just north of Albuquerque):
Towns without natural-gas service included Española, Taos, Questa, Red River, the town of Bernalillo, Tularosa, La Luz, Placitas, Santa Clara Pueblo, Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, Alamogordo, Silver City and San Ildefonso Pueblo. Many were expected to remain without natural gas through today while crews struggled to re-pressurize the lines. Town emergency personnel and officials worked to set up emergency shelters, and residents rushed to stores to buy food, gasoline and other supplies.
Temperatures are not as low as they were, but they are still bitterly cold over much of the state. The lack of natural gas means a lot of people have no heat. Those who do have heat are asked to lower their thermostats and "bundle up." Yes, well, I'm pretty sure they're doing that already!
The cold front that descended on New Mexico beginning Tuesday also walloped Texas, causing rolling power blackouts across the state. Most of Texas is on an electric grid separate from the rest of the Western grid, but some of it still powers compressor stations necessary to move natural gas through hundreds of miles of pipeline into New Mexico. In addition, El Paso Electric, which is connected to the Western grid and New Mexico, had two of four power-generating stations down, according to company statements and news reports. The company, serving West Texas, also had rolling blackouts for its customers Wednesday.
The intermittent power supply made it tough for New Mexico Gas to keep gas pressurized in the pipeline system, Hussey said. In addition, the freezing temperatures caused a spike in demand by customers across the state, draining existing gas in the lines. As the pressure declined, the gas couldn't reach the farthest towns in the north with enough volume, Hussey said. "Taos and those areas are the end of the line," Hussey said. "The gas just couldn't reach."
And to preserve what pressure was left, crews began shutting down meters.
New Mexico is a prime natural-gas producer and is ranked fourth nationally.
Note the last sentence. Yet parts of New Mexico rely on supplies from El Paso Natural Gas in Texas, and even Californians know how disreputable they are.
I'm planning to go to New Mexico this weekend if I feel up to it (have been feeling much better this week, thankfully), so this morning I checked the weather to see what driving conditions would be like for the trip and to see what kind of weather there would be while I was there.
-21º at our place this morning! I can't even imagine a temperature like that. And I've spent some winters in some pretty cold places like Upstate New York and Anchorage, AK. Nothing even close to a temperature like that, ever, occurred at any of them. The coldest I've experienced in NM is 13º, which is cold, certainly, but survivable. And in AK and NY temperatures in the teens and twenties were common, only once down to 3º in Anchorage and 0º once in Rochester. But apparently it's been this cold in NM for days. Only supposed to warm up -- a little -- beginning on the weekend, then get into more normal territory next week. Ie: 30's and 40's.
I expect the pipes will be frozen. They're plastic, the kind that's not supposed to break when it freezes, but I don't know whether they can withstand such low temperatures.
It occurred to me that the electric co-op isn't all that reliable, outages being frequent and all, sometimes all day, and I got to thinking that if the electricity went out when the temps were that low, we'd freeze. The main heater is gas, but without electricity, it won't work. Thermostats and all, fans, that sort of thing. The kitchen stove is gas, but it requires electricity to function as well, though it might be possible to light it with a match in a pinch. Never tried. There are electric space heaters in some of the rooms, and of course if the power is out, no heat. There is no fireplace. There was a wood stove, possibly two, at one time, the holes for the chimney pipes are still visible in the attic. But they were taken out long ago when a gas heater was installed probably in the late 30's or early 40's. It, at least, could be lit with a match. The new one we had installed can't.
So I'm thinking about alternatives.
Supplementary wood stoves? Kiva fireplaces in every room?
Of course practically everyone around us has their own generator, just in case.
I know other parts of the country have been facing fierce cold and intense blizzards pretty much all winter, but this is very unusual for New Mexico. I'm completely unused to such bitter cold, being mostly a California Boy (you should see me during a tornado warning! Even though we have them in CA, more and more lately, we never get warnings, per se. Unlike the Midwest...)
