Brrr... -38 F Local Temps

It's a balmy -15 F in my town but other local temps are reaching -38 F.

Last year while the news said it was only -24 F my Windstar minivan blew the pressure hose off of the power steering pump and dumped all of the fluid on the ground. When I went to add in some more it wouldn't pour out of the plastic bottle and I had to squeeze it out like cold molasses. I then went and started my truck and it also ruptured the PS hose, but that one was just a slow leak that waited until spring to get fixed.

I tried to duplicate and film the semi solid power steering fluid a couple of weeks ago when the low temps where again -24 F but it poured out just fine. Either the temps weren't the same or the PS brand was different?

Those are actual air temperatures?!? 

Good grief. 

We had an extremely short "winter" here in Phoenix. It's been in the 80s for the past couple weeks now. There's a 120F delta between our locations! 

Low single digits (deg. F.) is about as cold as it ever gets here, and that's too dang cold. 

We started out warm, but it's been a pretty consistently cold winter here.

Day time temps are pretty close to freezing, but we're not seeing the normal cycle of snow/melt/snow/melt that we normally do.

Peabody said:

We started out warm, but it's been a pretty consistently cold winter here.

 

Same here.  Local weather (central Virginia) has been saying we had the coldest recorded January since 1984.

Nope, no thanks.  80 and sunny today, just the way I like it 

Please keep that in North Dakota.

Actually, that's one thing that comes from Canada that they can keep!!!  

dyintorace said:

Those are actual air temperatures?!? 

Can you believe that people actually choose to live there?

53 here. 

It was 82 Sunday so I had to dig out the shorts. 

The rest of the week is mid-40s to mid-60s. So about normal for us. We may not get back down below freezing this year. Or we may have another snowstorm. You never know. 

North Dakota's only real claim to fame is our weather temperature extremes. At least it keeps the weak willed and smart people out.

North Dakota Winter of '35-'36;

"For 37 days, January 14 to February 19, there was only one day on which the thermometer registered as high as zero, while for the week ending February 17 the average temperature was -28° F, and for all January and February, -13° F."

"All-time lowest temperature: -60° F (Parshall on Feb. 15, 1936)"

"All-time highest temperature: 121° F (Steele on July 6, 1936)"

181 degree temperature swing, all in the same year and 5 months apart. 

VolvoHeretic said:

North Dakota's only real claim to fame is our weather temperature extremes. At least it keeps the weak willed and smart people out.

Hey, winter at least cuts down on the mosquitoes and biting flies.

It's +25 and sunny here. And that's C. Some rain this morning, but now is really clear and warm. 

Several things:

GM sells a low temp power steering fluid.

Ford figures a power steering cooler is a really good idea.  It is not in my climate.

I firmly believe that there is a number, right around -30C, where nothing works, everything breaks, and stuff is too cold to fix, so just stay the hell home.  And that goes for everyone, especially anything with hydraulics in it.

I also don't follow the advice in point 3, because I'm a moron.  Or a masochist. Or something bad, anyway.

I'm southeast of Winnipeg this week dialing in the winter ventilation in a number of our egg barns out here so this weather is actually pretty ideal. In the barns you don't even need to worry about figuring out what the airflow looks like as that cold air coming in through the ceiling inlets from the attic turns to a fog as it comes into the hot environment making it very visible.

The rental CX-30 wasn't super happy starting at -30 C this morning but overall managed it pretty well. As long as the Embrear E195-E2 fires up Friday morning at 5 am to fly me home I'll be happy.

In reply to adam525i :

Wondering what -30 C was in Farenheit, I found an online calculator and learned that -30 C = -22 F. I than checked what the Celsius temp was at -38 F which is -38.89 C.

TIL that -40 C = -40 F.

VolvoHeretic said:

In reply to adam525i :

TIL that -40 C = -40 F.

When I was younger I was in sales and in a meeting with a few engineers and a sales engineer from my company.  

The one engineer mentioned needing rubber seals down to -40dgC and I asked what that was in dgF.  

They all burst out in laughter and rubbed my head and called me Little Buddy.  It was painful that day.  

I've heard that Redline engine oil becomes molasses-like at super-cold temps as well, if you want another experiment to try.

I've done true -40 in a previous trip out here, the Nissan I had was not happy and there didn't seem to be a way to warm up the car gently with the CVT.

Oh well, it was a rental.

Winnipegger here. I use my block heater and remote start. My exterior temp sensor actually said -32 C, which is about as low as I've seen the GM sensors read. They don't have much resolution past -28 or so.

Datsun240ZGuy said:

When I was younger I was in sales and in a meeting with a few engineers and a sales engineer from my company.  

The one engineer mentioned needing rubber seals down to -40dgC and I asked what that was in dgF.  

They all burst out in laughter and rubbed my head and called me Little Buddy.  It was painful that day.  

Those guys are probably still telling that story.  (I'm an engineer too so I know how their minds work.)

High today 81. Low 79. Nice not to be home now. 

I guess I can't complain about -3C, but I must be getting used to it, I could have swore the temps were plus 3