FAI AK GETS WINTER

Todays fcst for Fairbanks,,,, Damn I am glad to have 30 above

Sunday, Nov 15 Currently -13F
High: -4 °F RealFeel®: 6 °F
Cloudy most of the time with a couple of flurriesSunday Night, Nov 15
Low: -25 °F RealFeel®: -16 °F
Clouds breaking

That actually isn't too bad. When it hits the -50's things get tough in Fairbanks. Actually -40 is a bad temp. When it is -39 or above it actually isn't too bad. The cars work fine and you can get out for the weekly grocery shopping. -40 and below is very tough on everything, especially your vehicle. This is a pic of me after running 3 miles at -36F. I have since done 3 miles at -40F. Our son took this pic.

Gee whiz Torch, The wife does all the "runs" when it gets cold. Although sometimes she does bring the wrong kind of beer home from the store.

Don,

The ONLY good thing about -40 degrees is that you don't have to convert.

Period... 8)

MTV

Torch,
I couldn't run 3 feet at -36. That's really impressive!

MTV, :lol: Most guys don't worry about convert at those temps. Shrinkage is so bad it turns to INVERT.

MikeA, At least you can get J to get SOME beer. Mrs. Torch refuses to purchase any .

Fairbanks doesn't have winter...yet!

After 28 years there I can concur with Torch the temps today are absolutely balmy! Try driving the rig @ -50 something when the tires are square and the ice fog is thick enough to cut with a knife, no wonder it drives me to Anybody know the history of the Silver Cub at Birchwood that has been for sale at least the last year out there?

One of my wife's uncles is a contractor. They tried working through the winter, by Bemidji, Minnesota, in order to bail out a peat bog and backfill it.

On those -30 and below mornings, they used the BIG portable welder to jump-start the equipment, if it hadn't been left running all night.

On of the scrapers broke its 'neck' (I don't recall the technical name of the goose-neck where the thing articulates), something that's pretty uncommon.

Steel can get quite brittle at low temperatures. I've gone out running in below-zero temps but not that cold!

Jon B.

When I was a kid in Fairbanks, I used to walk to Main School from 21st and S. Turner in whatever temperature it happend to be! -30, -40 or -50, just trudge back and forth. Dark when I went to school and dark when I came home in the winter.

Scruffdog said:

When I was a kid in Fairbanks, I used to walk to Main School from 21st and S. Turner in whatever temperature it happend to be! -30, -40 or -50, just trudge back and forth. Dark when I went to school and dark when I came home in the winter.

Click to expand...

It hasn't changed much.

Did a construction project in Northway one winter where most of the supplies (that weren't on site) were staged in Fbks. Routine temps of -50 for several days (seem to recall 1 period of a month of at least -40) and no "warm" days above 0. For this project, there was nowhere to go that was "warm"...either one worked in Fairbanks staging material or one worked in Northway installing the work. Both were colder than....well, they were cold that year.

Suffice to say that it was an interesting project. Due to a healthy LD clause, work had to continue through the winter (performance period was June of year 1 through December of year 2). Due to a healthy bid price ( we could make some money if we completed on time, so worked through the winter. Interesting how well welders, p/u trucks, gensets etc work after running constantly (except for infrequent trips inside for shutdown and maintenance) for 6 months.

Have long since lost records, but even compared to a similar winter job in Los Anchorage, I seem to recall that the efficiency was about 25%.

Going to Broken Bow, OK trout fishing tommorow for 4 days. It will be 45degs at night brrrrr. hope I survive. We are putting 5000 Brown trout in friday using Vibert boxs.

Back when I was a kid...

We lived off Badger Road in Fairbanks, a low spot and coldest of the cold areas. I remember my dad pulling himself up into the 4x4 truck that was parked outside so we could go into town in the morning and the steering wheel broke off in his hands. It got down to a serious -72 below. I also did the walking to school thing from our bakery downtown to Monroe. School was never closed for weather. On the cold days you had to wait a minute to take off your scarf or you would pull out your eye lashes in the frost on it. Valdez is the banana belt compared to the interior.