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Pattern Freezing Ferocious February

GaWx said:
Tony,
So, you're saying run the water inside instead of outside? If inside, just at one sink? For my area, teens are almost always the coldest. I usually think about possibly running it with lows in the low 20s, especially if it looks like a long duration. But I've always done outside.
This area hasn't had single digits since 1985 and there have been only 5 of those since records started in 1874.
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In my experience, you don't need to run it with lows in the 20's at all. I've waited until its gotten to the mid/upper teens & has worked just fine. It's when they get around lower teens & below you'll have problems.
 
Tarheel1 said:
Inside. I've never heard of letting outside pipes drip
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my next door neighbors outside faucet has been running literally half way open all winter but then again i don't think she's all here. i bet her water bill is very high
 
GaWx said:
Thanks, Mack. Are you serious?
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Yes, really. During the Jan snap, I had lows of 8, 11,11 on coldest days. Just let inside faucets drip, open cabinets under sinks to let more heat get to those piped, and just put covers over 2 outside faucets, have cheap cpvc pipes, came out just fine! 11 houses in my neighborhood had horrible damage from busted pipes during that spell
 
ugly look
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But others have said the models have been really struggling with the possible pattern change so while this period can be looked at we might just need to wait to see what kind of pattern we get.
 
GaWx said:
Yeah, I have noticed the EPS playing "catchup" as you put it and increasing its amplitude when crossing into 7. To review, when the GEFS was first off the chart at 4.2 in phase 7, the EPS was only 2.5 at is highest in 7 when we both started discussing this. I, in agreement with MDA, stated that based on the strong overamping tendency of the GEFS I was confident that the EPS would end up coming much closer to what verifies for the strongest in 7. I noted that you were taking the rare opposite position of expecting GEFS to verify more closely due to the current setup being similar to past times when GEFS did better and EPS didn't do so good (initialization in Maritime Continent, which I have to admit is quite interesting). This is how I decided to score this EPS vs GEFS battle. IF it gets to 3.5+, I'll give you and GEFS the win. If it verifies 3.0 or under, the EPS and I win. If between 3.0 and 3.5, I'd call it about a draw because neither would deserve a win that far off imo. On the 1/27 run, whereas the GEFS dropped to 4.0, the EPS rose to 2.8
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I gave you a link to the Kim et al (2014) paper yesterday that documented this bias in the EPS, which again, is in fact larger than the GFS/CFS oversimplification bias when the MJO is in the Maritime Continent. This is why you don't just broad brush particular model biases for all cases, there are specific instances like this where for example the relaxed Arakawa-Schubert convective scheme in the ECMWF leads to a dampening bias w/ the MJO when is initialized the Maritime Continent (the so called Maritime Continent prediction barrier) and the GFS is in fact better because easterly propagation into the Western Pacific and the western Hemisphere plays into its western hemisphere bias and again this is documented in Kim et al (2014). I've also seen this play out enough over the past several years to recognize the few instances when the GFS is as or more useful for MJO prediction than the ECMWF (again those 2 cases are when the GFS agree on general easterly propagation as the ECMWF and when the MJO is initialized in the Maritime Continent or western Pacific, otherwise the GFS is usually garbage in comparison). The EPS continues to adjust upwards btw even vs yesterday, one member now brings the MJO up to 3.5 sigma, the forecast means have been higher than the upper bound of the ensemble suite the past few days (underdispersion ftw) so expect more upward adjustments as we near verification, and if so, the GFS will end up being more correct (as expected from the Kim et al research & prior experience w/ MJO tracking).
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Cad Wedge NC said:
This is nothing new. The models always have difficulty during times of pattern changes. They will get a better idea of the main players in a few days. Until then, don't even concern yourselves with the operational runs. unless you are forecasting for < 5 days. Folks need to relax, there will be cold for us in February. Too many indices pointing that way to just ignore (MJO, QBO, AO, PNA). It will be a Fab Feb.
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Yep I’m throwing out the 12z operational runs of the euro and gfs because they don’t show me getting a good storm on Friday now. I’m joking of course. In all seriousness I said I’d be excited if the models continued to show a good snow on Friday and still had it by tonight’s runs. Unfortunately things have taken an ugly turn after many successive good snowy runs.
 
Stormlover said:
No need to run it..dripping steady does just fine.
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Not in my house. Dripping got me on my back in freezing water twice, before I learned my lesson. He's already had his pipes freeze once, to be sure it won't happen again with very low temps, run them in a stream, if they have a history of freezing. If you have great insulation, and well circulated heat thru out, and don't have a history of frozen pipes, dripping might get it for most :)
 
EPS is a conus blowtorch day 10. GEFS was a lot colder, not sure which one to believe.

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Tarheel1 said:
Inside. I've never heard of letting outside pipes drip
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I always run my outside faucets, I get some great ice sculptures. But with them wrapped, and running a stream inside at the sink, above that faucet, I only do it now when it's under 10, and again dripping doesn't get it for me... from experience...I let them run a stream. That's my studio. The big house is brick, is well insulated, has a space heater in the basement, and central heat. If the power goes out I have the propane space heaters in the basement, house and porch, and I've never had a history of freezing there. My studio sits on blocks, is not well insulated, and freezes below 25 even dripping. So I run a stream. I'm on a well, so it only cost the money to run the pump and heat the water heater, and that's so much better than holding a flash light in your teeth, lying in water, when it's cold, fixing pipes, lol. I don't have to do pipes any more, because I leaned, though it took several times for the lesson to sink in, lol.
 
GaWx said:
Tony,
So, you're saying run the water inside instead of outside? If inside, just at one sink? For my area, teens are almost always the coldest. I usually think about possibly running it with lows in the low 20s, especially if it looks like a long duration. But I've always done outside.
This area hasn't had single digits since 1985 and there have been only 5 of those since records started in 1874.
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Larry, see my post below. It all depends on your history. I've live in houses with crawl spaces, one with copper, one with pvc and they froze on occasion if I was dripping the water. As soon as I went to a pencil stream inside and out no more problem. I figure overkill is better than sorry. But if you are brick, well insulated, and run the faucet closest to the junction with the outside faucet, and it's wrapped, you can skate....until it freezes, lol. Another thing to do is buy your plumbing supplies ahead of time, like in the summer, lol, because when your pipes freeze, and lot of other ones did too, and they beat you to home depot, lol. I have several cans of glue, cleaner, and lots of hot and cold pipe on hand in case I mess up. That Feb a few years back where it stayed below freezing for days, I waited until about four that first cold day to run the water, and it was already too late. Now I start running it hours before it hits freezing, because I was under the house in the dark fixing them when they broke after it went above freezing, and I was cussing, and fuming, and made myself a promise, "Tony, you damn idiot, run the damn water, if froze once, it will do it again", lol.
 
EPS completely lost the -EPO. Hopefully the GEFS is more accurate or maybe we just have to wait another week or two.

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