Advice from northern snow county people.

[trailtwister]

Advice from northern snow county people for the people in the south who just can not seem to do more than spin their wheels.

SLOW DOWN AND PUT THAT EGG BETWEEN YOUR FOOT AND PEDAL.

If you are at work and have not did one thing to prepare for winter driving on snow is to let air out of your drive tires. this makes a much bigger foot print on the ground and can help you get home. I also like to carry a bottle(gallon) of bleach. Pour the bleach on your drive wheels in icy conditions, not real sure what it does maybe heats the rubber so it sticks to the icy roads better and it will last for 50 or so miles.

Put some kitty litter in your car/truck that spread on icy roads can get you going.

Good Idea to carry a shovel I like a small scope type my self to dig away snow when stuck. Spray it with PAM to keep snow from sticking.

Invest in a set of tire chains. Ya you can't drive 100MPH with them on or even half that but they will get you home. Even the cheap emergency chains will get you home.

Carry food stuffs, granola bars are good, drinking water is a bit harder to carry but fill bottles only half way and you can warm them enough they will thaw to drink and will not usually burst the bottle.
Carry extra warm coats, hats ear muffs, gloves and some boots for your feet, a couple blankets too in case you get where you can't move because of other unprepared people stuck blocking the road  ahead.

Also keep your fuel tank as full as you can prevents some moisture from getting in the tank and causing fuel line freeze up advise to add a deicer to your tank every so often for the same reason.


Ok you other northern drivers help those southern people out.

I get a tummy ache watching them on the news acting funnier than key stone cops.

   Al

[pitw]

WTF, carry water .  The stuff you are stuck in is water.   Bleach is something I never have carried except when I wanna make snow camo. Flat tires wreck rims too. We don't even use kitty litter for our cats to poop in let alone carry it around.   My old man has been dead for about 5 years but I heard him laughing at the pam idea.   Food in the car makes for fat mice.

[Okanagan]

 Food in the car makes for fat mice.

Doing my usual tangent rather than staying on topic:  I had a wilderness mouse move into my 4x4 up along the Yukon border while hunting moose up there a few years ago.  He was still in the rig when I got home, 1084 miles south of where he got in.  He avoided a trap but starved out and left when there was no more food in the rig to pillage.  Wonder how he made out.

Meanwhile, the rain continues here.  I may go up the mountain today to see what a snowflake looks like.

[Okanagan]

Musing on the original topic, it is harder to prepare for things we seldom experience, such as snow in the south.  I.e Cities like Seattle don't have much snow removal equipment because it rarely gets used, and is really needed only once or twice in ten years.  The same holds for individuals and gear outside of normal use.  A good time to buy a second hand and never used electrical generator is a year or two after a big storm scare.   

There is a wider backdrop for preparation across a spectrum of people. There is a mindset that tends to go prepared and one that assumes nothing will go wrong and that nothing will happen to even change my plans.   Pessimist and optimist.   I tend to go prepared though nobody knows enough to prepare for everything.  Unprepared friends of mine wear flip flops when driving to the grocery store or across country.  They don't take outer clothes to fit the weather if they need to get out of the vehicle, etc.  It is a running joke with a smidge of tension within my family.  i.e. It is foolish IMO in rain forest country to go anywhere without a rain jacket along, in the vehicle, in a day pack etc.  Ditto for warm clothes in snow country, heat shield clothes in super hot country.   Be prepared to get out of the vehicle and walk a ways.

During my international travel days, (and still) I wear shoes that will allow me to run for my life over broken glass.  Others can wear flip flops on the plane and in tropical Third World cities:  not me.  Footwear that allows for puddles, slush, mud, rocks and gravel and broken sidewalks is standard for me to drive to Safeway.

I have a plastic tub with locking lid the size of a large shoe box that contains a backpack stove and fuel, titanium pot, salt and pepper, cup, bowl, spoon, can opener, instant soup and drinks and a couple of cans of stew.  It likely has a smallish multi-tool as well.  I should go look to see what else has crept in.  A fire starting and overnight survival kit that will fit in a jacket pocket is under the seat always.  Shovel, ax, saw, small pick, length of aircraft cable, jumper cables and tire chains are standard in my 4x4.  On a trip I move the backpack stove tub to our family car but don't have chains for it.  If it is snowing we either don't go or take the 4x4. 

Many times I use the tub with backpack stove to make hot drinks for lunch on hunts, heat some stew and replace them with new cans. It is not a static survival thing but a regularly used kit.

For a snow storm like the one predicted in the news?  If you can, hole up and don't go anywhere till it is over, two or three days likely.  If you have to go to work, do the best you can with what you have or can carpool, and remember that 4 wheel drive may go in snow but does not help you stop.   We LOVE to hunt when everybody is snowed in.  When my son was at U. Washington they cancelled classes one day due to snow.  He went elk hunting and killed his first elk.  The beginning and end of major storms are superb times to call predators. 

[nastygunz]

Failing to prepare,is preparing to fail ....

[JohnP]

When we lived in heavy snow country I was always prepared, had plenty of bourbon, good Irish whisky and made sure the furnace was in good working order - what else do you need??????

[pitw]

3 Eskimo lady's.

[KySongDog]

During my international travel days, (and still) I wear shoes that will allow me to run for my life over broken glass.  Others can wear flip flops on the plane and in tropical Third World cities:  not me.  Footwear that allows for puddles, slush, mud, rocks and gravel and broken sidewalks is standard for me to drive to Safeway.

I have a plastic tub with locking lid the size of a large shoe box that contains a backpack stove and fuel, titanium pot, salt and pepper, cup, bowl, spoon, can opener, instant soup and drinks and a couple of cans of stew.  It likely has a smallish multi-tool as well.  I should go look to see what else has crept in.  A fire starting and overnight survival kit that will fit in a jacket pocket is under the seat always.  Shovel, ax, saw, small pick, length of aircraft cable, jumper cables and tire chains are standard in my 4x4.  On a trip I move the backpack stove tub to our family car but don't have chains for it.  If it is snowing we either don't go or take the 4x4. 

Many times I use the tub with backpack stove to make hot drinks for lunch on hunts, heat some stew and replace them with new cans. It is not a static survival thing but a regularly used kit.

Lots of good advice there. Thanks.  I carry an 8 ton hand winch in my truck as well.  It might take a little while but it will pull you out of trouble.  An electric winch on the front doesn't do much good when your only option is to back up.  A lesson I learned the hard way at LBL many years ago.

I love driving in snow.  We are supposed to get 6 inches or so.  I'll be out playing in it. 

[FinsnFur]

Aren't you in Michigan, Al? This should be old hat for you lol
We dont really do anything different over here in Wisconsin then we would do during the summer month. (<---non plural)
My advice. Other then slow down is keep your *&!%ing foot off the brake pedal. People that get so nervous they think they have to ride the brake going down a snow covered hill are screaming for trouble.... and usually find it half way down I hate getting behind those people. They are setting everyone on the road up for a multiple car pile up.
There's a LOT of winter driving up here. Our kids take their driving tests on snowy roads sometimes. And there's no food allowed in the cars unless Dad says grab some burgers on the way home.

I hunted down in Texas with Randy Buker and Randy Watson one winter. Watson living in Texas told me that if it started snowing they would shut the town down. They dont have any plows and dont know what to do cause it never snows. I was laughing in amazement.

[bambam]

When we lived in heavy snow country I was always prepared, had plenty of bourbon, good Irish whisky and made sure the furnace was in good working order - what else do you need??????

  I gave in to the hysteria and went to the store today. I bought 4  30-packs of beer , a carton of cigarettes,  5 gallons of diesel fuel, and 2 pepperoni rolls. Bring it on !!! 

[trailtwister]

Yes I live in Michigan and any thing under a foot of snow was considered a heavy frost. I was just watching the news and seeing all those fools going nuts, banging and crashing had me laughing so hard my tummy got to hurting.
I just though we of the snow (most years) could share some tips to get the fools home with out killing each other on the roads.
When I was a kid  (we were all driving the farm truck and tractors by the time we were 10.) we used to take a old jalopy out on the lake and play slidem  in the winter and dodge the ice shanty.

  Al

[Okanagan]

When we lived in heavy snow country I was always prepared, had plenty of bourbon, good Irish whisky and made sure the furnace was in good working order - what else do you need??????

  I gave in to the hysteria and went to the store today. I bought 4  30-packs of beer , a carton of cigarettes,  5 gallons of diesel fuel, and 2 pepperoni rolls. Bring it on !!! 

Yep, on the other end of the spectrum are the nuts who over prepare!   

[Dale]

I'm up in Central PA for my birthday... this crap started yesterday afternoon and spoiled my dinner plans... now we have 2'+ and still coming down till later today... originally the forecast was for 6"-8", guess we can see they are way off...  oh well it's not the first time I been in big snow...

[Dave]

I'm a little east of you, Dale.  We are now over 14" and a little further than 1/2 way through it.  The bad part is the gusting winds - makes it blizzard like.

Unfortunately, I think my area would lie in the lower portion of the pic below 

[JohnP]

I'm a little east of you, Dale.  We are now over 14" and a little further than 1/2 way through it.  The bad part is the gusting winds - makes it blizzard like.

Unfortunately, I think my area would lie in the lower portion of the pic below 

Snow in Southern Arizona --None,  High today 75.

[Okanagan]

I'm a little east of you, Dale.  We are now over 14" and a little further than 1/2 way through it.  The bad part is the gusting winds - makes it blizzard like.

Unfortunately, I think my area would lie in the lower portion of the pic below 

Dave, that picture got a belly laugh out of me. 

Doggone, you are getting some serious snow.  Sounds like my daughter will be getting a bunch also.  Glad it is the weekend. 

Our weather is about the same as we expect on the 4th of July:  overcast and drizzly rain in about 55 degrees.    'Course the sun might come out in July.

[Dale]

we wound up with about 36", hard to measure with all the drifting, but had32" before it started blowing to bad...  now the long road to digging out...  times like this remind me why I moved south to begin with... it was in the mid 40's yesterday down home...

[nastygunz]

My best winter advice is have your wife warm-up and stretch real good before you send her out shoveling!   

[Coulter]

My best advise...stay the heck home! If you can't drive in it all your gonna do is tick off those of us that can. And scrape the freakin' snow off of your car so you can see. What moron drives off with 3/4 of their windows still covered in snow hoping the wind will blow it off.

[pitw]

What moron drives off with 3/4 of their windows still covered in snow hoping the wind will blow it off.

Moi.