Winter Weather

All the excitement around here, lately, is about the weather. It's not unseasonably cold or snowy, but the temperatures are cycling a little slower than they usually do. That's causing some local side effects.

You see, normally, the temperatures cycle throughout winter. We spend a few days around freezing (days above, nights below), then we drop down and spend a few days around 0* F (days above, nights below). It goes back and forth like that for the winter months.

This winter we've been spending 1 - 2 weeks around freezing, then 1 - 2 weeks around 0*F. The result has been evidenced all over town. Pipes have been bursting all over the place. Furnaces are breaking down from the constant use and effort.

And today, we found out that our furnace can't get fuel from the bottom three inches of our fuel tank. It's supposed to be filled in 2 days, but the furnace stopped blowing this afternoon. The fuel company added a couple extra routes this evening because so many people are in similar circumstances, but we called so late in the business day they weren't 100% sure they'd actually get to us tonight.

We have an excellent, high efficiency space heater that keeps the main part of the house at comfortable temperatures, even at -15* outside. If we go night without heat, we're almost guaranteed burst pipes, though.   That means moving the space heater to the basement to keep the pipes warm. Which means moving the whole family to the basement too, and hoping we don't wake up under burst pipes.

*le sigh*