.
After an unusually warm winter in Maine, cold weather has finally arrived.
.
.
The arctic blast that’s been moving across country finally found us and with the strong winds? Even my menopausal hot flashing self has to put on a coat to go outside.
There are places in Maine that are seeing 60 below zero wind chills today but Mount Washington, New Hampshire? They just dropped to the coldest wind chill temperature ever recorded in the U.S….. 108 below! Now that’s winter.
But a little brisk, even for me.
While I woke up to no cold water in the kitchen, which is normal when you’re an idiot who forgot to let the faucet drip last night, this was a new phenomenon at Casa River –
.
.
The house was cracking and banging last night with the frigid temps and we thought we heard one giant contraction when we were watching tv in the living room.
.
.
So this was our bedroom picture window when we woke up.
.
.
Seal clearly broken and a circle of solid ice.
It also happened on a side window.
.
.
Looks like we’ll be doing some replacing this year.
.
River's world..... 
Howdy almost-neighbour. Yes, here in New Brunswick, this is what you call MIGHTY, freaking cold. Our windows have frosted up all around the periphery, but not in the middle, like yours. Dang 😬😳 And yes, the house has been making an awful racket. Our poor dog goes silly every time 🙄 Stay warm!!!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Lord Dudley doesn’t like the cracking either. Poor thing , it interrupts his all day nap.
😉
LikeLiked by 2 people
Awww 🙂💕
LikeLiked by 1 person
OMG!!!!! We are going all the way down to
74°
RealFeel® 71°
rain drop47% 4 PM
73°
RealFeel® 70°
rain drop49%
6 PM
71°
RealFeel® 64°
rain drop64%
7 PM
69°
RealFeel® 66°
I’m freezing already!!!!!! :O)
LikeLiked by 1 person
You Floridians are such delicate flowers.
🤣
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, but alive flowers that bloom all year.
LikeLiked by 1 person
How boring. We’re alive and all the more special when we do bloom….
😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Same here in the greater Tampa area. I had to practically turn of the A/C!
LikeLike
Feeling for you, River. But I gotta say, even up here in the far far North, I have never heard of a wind chill of 108° below. Once the thermometers drop below -50°C the wind gets frozen and stops blowing. Sounds like New Hampshire suddenly took a trip to Antarctica.
Nor have I ever seen a window do what yours is doing. I guess your housebuilders never expected temperaturs such as you are getting. Like Patti’s, our windows only ice up around the edges unless a home is extremely humid inside. But I have hever seen a window freeze from the middle out, only from the outsides in.
Hope Lord Dudley isn’t trying to birdwatch today!
LikeLiked by 1 person
We have a few windows that ice around the edges but this was … interesting.
Mount Washington is the highest peak in the White Mountain range in NH and the weather station at the top records some crazy extremes.
❄️
LikeLike
I take it Polar Vortex met the remains of a tropical storm wind. And being on top of a mountain, even a small one, means no trees to slow the wind down up there.
LikeLike
That window is something else. Really cool.
Also, I’m over it with this polar vortex crap. 🥶
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like cold weather and winter, but then I don’t have to go anywhere in these frigid temps.
LikeLike
Wow, it broke the seal o your windows!? That’s definitely way more than freezing. Here in far west Texas it’s a chilly…….70 degrees 🥶.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There was a massive bang/crack/heave… I’m guessing that’s what caused it because it never happened before… though the windows are old.
LikeLiked by 1 person
wow, that is cold, colder than when I was in South Korea and the Catskills. Good day to pack a book, a fire, and an armchair in front of the fire.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Substitute a cup of tea for the fire, and that’s exactly how I spent the day.
👍
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow! Sorry about those windows. We got down to -10, accompanied by all kinds of noise. We’ve been following Mt Washington’s conditions. Tell Dudley they have a cat up there. Maybe he wants a part time job.
LikeLiked by 1 person
His Lordship does not tolerate cold temperatures and wind, even part time.
😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
I read about this in the news and wondered how you’d go. This is something totally new to me and very interesting because I was learning the other day about soils and how clay-rich soils expand when there’s more precipitation and shrink during a drought – this can damage houses (the soil around my house is clay rich). So when I read about this banging/creaking house of yours and that odd window ice configuration I’m fascinated. Not because of clay, but your soil’s water content and its freezing – when water freezes it expands, sort of like clay. I’m a mature aged student and love all this learning. Stay safe and warm.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We live by a large river and the bank has a lot of clay. It’s why so many of the trees we plant never make it past the first few years. We have veritable speed bumps in our lawn due to the frost and freeze heaving.
😟
LikeLiked by 1 person
I dig down and pull out the clay, then throw some rocks in so the roots have access, but obviously if a large river’s nearby your clay’s probably too deep for that and you’d need to drill deep. Then the weather extremes! It’s still beautiful there, though. Isn’t Earth an amazing old girl!
LikeLiked by 1 person
She is. And our clay is very deep. We have to dig down 4 feet when we build anything to avoid frost heaves and there’s still clay at that point.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Did you see the recent video of the guy broadcasting from Mt. Washington? He had to go out every hour for some reason… The winds were over a hundred…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, that weather station and the crazy extremes up there get quite a bit of coverage here.
LikeLike
I guess we got lucky to miss out on this. I mean, it was cold last week, but just lower teens cold. And now it’s back into the 50’s for this week, which is good since I found out this morning my furnace decided to stop working while I was at work last night…
LikeLike
Yikes. That’s not good…
LikeLike
Yeah, that’s just too cold. I think we bottomed out at 10F air temp, but it felt colder because it has otherwise been mild since our Christmas chill. Very unfortunate some of your windows got caught up in all the “excitement.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
We’ve replaced all of the windows in the house except these. Guess this was their way of saying it’s our turn.
🥴
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yikes! I’ve never seen anything like that before. It almost looks artistic.
We just got rid of our frigid temps like that. Yesterday it was in the high 20s. It felt like summer! I walked to the grocery store!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s going to be almost 50 here on Wednesday. It’s insane.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Whoa. I’ve never seen anything like that! Are you talking about replacing the seals or the windows? I was amazed to discover recently how much new windows cost these days!
LikeLiked by 1 person
We replaced 15 windows a few years back and the sticker shock almost killed my husband. We decided to wait on our bedroom… but it looks like we can’t wait anymore. They all need to go.
LikeLike
uh oh
LikeLiked by 1 person