Snowstorm Coming Wednesday (Flagstaff, Prescott, Prescott Valley: apartments, home, contractor)

[Esenjay]

[DellNec]

A lot of streets still remain impassable or extremely dangerous. Packed ice on most of the side streets. We will have to wait for this to melt.

Spoke to a plumbing company, many calls coming in for broken water mains. We still have Saturday night to deal with, which will drop temps to the single digits again. This deep freeze will cause more water main breakages.

The temps were hovering around 3F last night. COLD!

CHECK YOUR PIPES!

[wa3pnt]

At 3:18 AM New Years Day the temperature at Road 1N in Chino VAlley was -0.9 Degrees Farenheit. I have a weather station on line with current conditions. On Weather Underground search for the Personal Weather Station KAZCHINO3, or go to this link

WunderMap Interactive Radar & Weather Stations : Weather Underground



George

[keninaz]

My WX station measured -5° this AM.
That is the coldest temperature I have measured since I got here some 2 1/2 years ago.
I will be glad when this all melts off.

[DellNec]

Originally Posted by keninaz

My WX station measured -5° this AM.
That is the coldest temperature I have measured since I got here some 2 1/2 years ago.
I will be glad when this all melts off.

The all-time low for Prescott was -21F below zero, back in 1937. If something like that hit again, which it can, there would be thousands of calls for broken water mains. A good time to be a plumber.

They are forecasting that tonight/sunrise, we will see -5F to -10F below zero in certain spots of Prescott. Brrrr...

I am with you 100% on the melt off but the problem is that the 10 day forecast is not too promising. We are looking at highs in the low 40s in the day and lows in the teens and 20's at night. This will create a slight melt off in the day and then a hard freeze at night. This will spell disaster on the roads and sidewalks. Melting snow and then freezing at night = broken bones and car accidents.

We will still see snow on the roads for at least another 10 days from now. Plus they are calling for more snow on Tuesday and Wednesday.

[DellNec]

Originally Posted by wa3pnt

At 3:18 AM New Years Day the temperature at Road 1N in Chino VAlley was -0.9 Degrees Farenheit. I have a weather station on line with current conditions. On Weather Underground search for the Personal Weather Station KAZCHINO3, or go to this link

WunderMap Interactive Radar & Weather Stations : Weather Underground



George

Oddly enough, Chino Valley is recording some really cold temps, colder than parts of Prescott. The elevation of CV is lower but I believe that the lack of trees and the vast openness of CV is causing them to get colder than Prescott.

[keninaz]

Ahhhh~the temps are now at 34° and rising with temps predicted at 40° for the next week.
That should get rid of this stuff!

[smilinpretty]

Originally Posted by keninaz

My WX station measured -5° this AM.
That is the coldest temperature I have measured since I got here some 2 1/2 years ago.
I will be glad when this all melts off.

Thanks for posting this...I am going to place it on my desktop.

[DellNec]

They said on the news that Flagstaff Fire Department is being inundated with calls about broken water mains. Prescott was inundated with water main breaks also.

Even a sprinkler pipe broke in a hangar at the Prescott Airport, but the water was shut off a short time later after deactivating an alarm.

As I said, the building codes in this area are quite lax. I had a builder come from Illinois and he viewed a home being built in Prescott. He cringed and could not believe the techniques, codes and lack of good building materials that they employ up here in Prescott.

When he seen the "Romex" running through the walls WITHOUT metal conduit, his jaw dropped.

Did you know that many homes in the tri-city lack proper "shear"? Many structures lack enough strength built into the structure to handle the wind load that this area can experience. An EF0 tornado would destroy most homes up here. In other parts of the country, with better building codes, an EF0 would cause only minor damage.

The point of all this is that the current FROST DEPTH LINE for this area is too shallow. It needs to drop another 1-2 feet. Not only that, but the pipes that run on the exterior of these homes is a joke. They need to be better designed and insulated.

[DellNec]

Moderator cut: copyright violation

per the Prescott Courier...

In a 24-hour period from Friday through Saturday, Grams said 50-60 calls streamed through his office. On a typical busy day during the year, he averages 20. He added that accidents, such as rear-enders and rollovers, were higher than normal late in the week because of ice on the roads.

"People have been sliding on the ice and then hitting a hard surface and rolling over that way," he said.

Grams said the city side streets in Prescott and Prescott Valley suffered the most because many of those roads that weren't plowed had the snow on them pack down and turn to ice. A combination of a high snowpack, a lack of sufficient plowing, and the bitterly cold, sub-freezing temperatures created problems for motorists, he added.

People in Prescott are having trouble getting out of their driveways because of the snow," he said. "In Prescott Valley, the city streets are probably more of a problem than people's driveways are. We had a lot more snow than what we're used to, and people weren't accustomed to that.