After our first real taste of what many of us here in the East would reasonably call "winter" cold, we get a respite for about a week. Not that it is going to be warm mind you, but close to seasonable anyway, some rain, a bit of snow in the mountains, snow showers, possibly a storm at weeks end that might be a lot of snow in the Western Appalachian ares, maybe not. What made this past week so demanding on your stove's output was the wind. In Newfields we recorded wind chills as low as -10, quite unusual for mid-November. Lat night when the wind finally relented, I actually could let the stove burn down to close to the ash stage! The real story developing here is that this past week seems to portend a taste of things to come. Most longer range models are suggesting more outbreaks of that type of cold across large swathes of the Eastern portions of the nation through at least the first 2 to 3 weeks of December with unusually cold temperatures and potential bitter wind chills all the way into the deep south. Places like Atlanta GA may find themselves struggling to break the freezing mark for high temps at times, while the more northern reaches deal with daytime highs in the teens, etc. putting wind chill values into negative territory. It is my experience that it is not so much the absolute temperature outside that determines the heat needs from my stove as it is the wind chill and we may be hard pressed in that area. We all can give thanks that energy costs have fallen so far so fast because it looks like energy demand for heat is going to be very high for a while to come in the major cities of the Eastern US.
