White Death 2026 is coming!

The Peeper

Heisman
Feb 26, 2008
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Bread shelves pretty thin too and zero bottled water

I never really thought much about water until I guess 2021 when we had some ice in Starkville. We are on a community water supply in the county and in that storm some limbs fell on power lines because of the ice and we lost power. Once that happened the pumps didn't work and nobody had water for 3 days. I was walking to a little lake in our neighborhood w/ a wagon and filling up 5 gallon water coolers to flush the toilets with. It gets rough after a few people drop some deuces in the porcelain bowl w/ no water and no flushing going on. Now I fill up the bath tubs w/ as much as they will hold for flushing and I have 5x 5 gallon bottles of water for drinking and cooking.
 

thatsbaseball

All-American
May 29, 2007
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Can one of you weather experts tell us if anything about this forecast has change since yesterday?
In the Jackson metro-area and 50 miles north I honestly believe it could be Saturday morning before we know what's going to happen. We're somewhere btween a crippling ice storm and a cold rain.

ETA: Still roughly the same.
 
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msudawg12

Senior
Dec 9, 2008
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In '94, after the ice storm, the bonus question on our materials test was:

Given: The tensile strength of ACSR (aluminum conductor steel reinforced.. the stuff power lines are made of), it's diameter and it's weight/foot.

Calculate: How much ice can form on the line before it snaps a 200 ft span.

Remember that it was an easy calculation.. What volume of a column of water at 8 lbs / gallon (minus the column of wire) would exceed the weight limit.

It wound up being something ridiculously minor.. something like a a column of ice 1/4 inch thick around the wire would turn your lights off.
I've always been of the opinion that the power companies in Mississippi should have a fairly large budget for moving power lines underground annually. Between winter weather and severe weather, outages are such a regular issue. Additionally, paying 2-3 times labor rates to have power companies send people from other states to help is expensive. I would imagine some of that could be offset in higher density areas.
 

Pars

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Oct 11, 2015
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I've always been of the opinion that the power companies in Mississippi should have a fairly large budget for moving power lines underground annually. Between winter weather and severe weather, outages are such a regular issue. Additionally, paying 2-3 times labor rates to have power companies send people from other states to help is expensive. I would imagine some of that could be offset in higher density areas.
Are you taking about having foresight and being proactive?
While spending money?
Sir what about the profits?
 

ronpolk

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May 6, 2009
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I've always been of the opinion that the power companies in Mississippi should have a fairly large budget for moving power lines underground annually. Between winter weather and severe weather, outages are such a regular issue. Additionally, paying 2-3 times labor rates to have power companies send people from other states to help is expensive. I would imagine some of that could be offset in higher density areas.
I’ve always wondered why this is not a priority. I get a huge expense up front but surely there is a massive amount of savings over the years.
 
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The Peeper

Heisman
Feb 26, 2008
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Between winter weather and severe weather, outages are such a regular issue.

With the exception of a 2021 ice storm, in 10 years of being on 4 County Electric in Oktibbeha County I bet my electricity hasn't been off a half a dozen times and maybe total of an hour or two? Three times it has been because of a damn squirrel committing suicide by biting into a line on a pole and twice that was on the same exact pole. All 3x a singed smoking ball of fur was all that was left at the base of the pole. I think 4 Coun must do a great job of switching things and re-routing their power to compensate for outages.
 

TimberBeast

Senior
Aug 23, 2012
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Back in the day some of my relatives ran a country store. When the weatherman predicted bad weather like this, the guy that delivered bread would get to it. I think he made commission on sales. And he would run that bread truck until he either couldnt get more bread to stock or the stores closed. Ice and snow be damned. He made the postal service look like amateurs.
I had a friend who's dad did the same thing with dry ice during Katrina and maybe others. I remember seeing a huge bag of cash sitting on the porch.
 
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RocketDawg

All-Conference
Oct 21, 2011
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Looking like almost all rain here and most of Alabama, but an ice storm warning in the Shoals area, which should translate to a large swath of north and northwest Mississippi. The forecast low pressure path seems to be moving consistently north however. Predicted minimum temps have also increased. We shall see.
 
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FreeDawg

Senior
Oct 6, 2010
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Just read Ryan Hall on X and he's been talking about the Euro model moving north. His latest update, 4 hours ago, make it seem like central MS will likely be fine but NW MS will have serious ice issues. Maybe one of our weather dogs can interpret.

 
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Sep 21, 2017
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Just read Ryan Hall on X and he's been talking about the Euro model moving north. His latest update, 4 hours ago, make it seem like central MS will likely be fine but NW MS will have serious ice issues. Maybe one of our weather dogs can interpret.


Ryan dropped a new video at 11 today and basically it is good news if you live in NW MS but bad news if you live in north central MS.

Right now a line from Greenville to Corinth is predicted to get 1-2 inches of freezing rain. This includes Tupelo and Oxford as the N/S bounding edges. North of that line including Desoto county and Memphis could see 0.5-1 inch of freezing rain. Yesterday that line was further north putting Memphis in the 1-2" freezing rain band.

 

horshack.sixpack

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Oct 30, 2012
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I've always been of the opinion that the power companies in Mississippi should have a fairly large budget for moving power lines underground annually. Between winter weather and severe weather, outages are such a regular issue. Additionally, paying 2-3 times labor rates to have power companies send people from other states to help is expensive. I would imagine some of that could be offset in higher density areas.
Federal regulations set the allowed rate of return based on rate base, which is the utility's capital assets. I assume that replacing overhead with buried is a wash from a capital asset perspective. i.e. if there was a way to make money on it they would be doing it
 

horshack.sixpack

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Oct 30, 2012
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Central MS is safe. I bought some ice studs for my truck and side by side, thus guaranteeing that we will have nothing. They weren't expensive and I likely won't ever use them. I'll put them on a hook in my shop right next to the Radio Flyer.
 
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Pre-Sh.tter

Senior
Sep 30, 2022
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I've always been of the opinion that the power companies in Mississippi should have a fairly large budget for moving power lines underground annually. Between winter weather and severe weather, outages are such a regular issue. Additionally, paying 2-3 times labor rates to have power companies send people from other states to help is expensive. I would imagine some of that could be offset in higher density areas.
Why invest when fema will bail them out annually with repairs?
 

thatsbaseball

All-American
May 29, 2007
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Here is the latest graphic from Jackson NWS.
View attachment 1157869
Just watching and listening to various sources it looks like there are a bunch of areas around this storm's core (for lack of a better word) where the slightest movement (even as little as 20-30 miles north or south) leading up to Saturday morning will make the difference in having it pretty good and having a disaster . The Jackson metro seems to be one of many.
 
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M_over_S

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Mar 6, 2024
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Central MS is safe. I bought some ice studs for my truck and side by side, thus guaranteeing that we will have nothing. They weren't expensive and I likely won't ever use them. I'll put them on a hook in my shop right next to the Radio Flyer.
i don’t think central MS is out of the woods at all. 12Z GFS and Canadian are predicting serious ice storm for everyone north and west of Jackson (like an inch of ice). EURO is showing about half of that. NAM is showing only rain. I really think Jackson is gonna be right on the line, a little southern shift and Jackson could get easily 0.5” of ice
 

M_over_S

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Mar 6, 2024
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Just watching and listening to various sources it looks like there are a bunch of areas around this storm's core (for lack of a better word) where the slightest movement (even as little as 20-30 miles north or south) leading up to Saturday morning will make the difference in having it pretty good and having a disaster . The Jackson metro seems to be one of many.
Agreed. The margins between basically just rain and a historic life storm are literally razor thin. 12Z batch of runs has me a little concerned for the Jackson metro
 

Hugh's Burner Phone

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Aug 3, 2017
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Just watching and listening to various sources it looks like there are a bunch of areas around this storm's core (for lack of a better word) where the slightest movement (even as little as 20-30 miles north or south) leading up to Saturday morning will make the difference in having it pretty good and having a disaster . The Jackson metro seems to be one of many.
Try 5-10 miles. It's literally a mile for mile criteria. It's why forecasting winter weather is so hard here.
 

RocketDawg

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Oct 21, 2011
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Ryan dropped a new video at 11 today and basically it is good news if you live in NW MS but bad news if you live in north central MS.

Right now a line from Greenville to Corinth is predicted to get 1-2 inches of freezing rain. This includes Tupelo and Oxford as the N/S bounding edges. North of that line including Desoto county and Memphis could see 0.5-1 inch of freezing rain. Yesterday that line was further north putting Memphis in the 1-2" freezing rain band.

I believe 1/4" of freezing rain triggers an ice storm warning, and it doesn't matter if you're in Minnesota or Mississippi. Power lines and trees don't care if you're in the southeast or upper midwest. Snow is different - 2" in Mississippi is a winter storm warning, but barely registers at all in Minnesota.
 

leeinator

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Feb 24, 2014
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Once you get to the point of .5"or > ice on trees and power lines, the party's over. You will have power outages. If it's only .25" you might skate by.
 

SyonaraStanz

Senior
Mar 5, 2010
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What’s the timing look like? I’m supposed to be driving from Memphis to the Central Delta late Friday night. Looks like I’ll be alright if I’m off the road around midnight.