Inside wood box empty, 45 MPH winds, 10° outside

Woah momma, you Alaska guys experience some serious temps. How are your house constructed? I assume they are built to withstand such extreme cold seasons. Bogydave, how does your house do with the extreme winds? Is it drafty?

I live in a converted beach bungalow. My house would shatter into pieces with temps and winds like that.

We lucked out and got to see the mountain when we were in Alaska. Still hope to return there some day.

Dang you Dave I was only joking when I said send some of that wind up here.. It is -36 out with 20mph wind currently so it feels like -54 bah! Time to stoke the fire!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

It's -15* here right now, but at least no wind.

Some "new record low temps" set for Alaska in the past weeks.
http://www.wjla.com/blogs/weather/2011/11/record-breaking-low-temperatures-in-alaska-13654.html

I was very startled to see that it had hit -41 up on West Ridge on the campus--it's usually pretty balmy up there (relatively speaking).

Well, my inside wood rack needs filling again, how about yours? I have enough spruce in here to keep me going for a few more days, but want to have the next batch warm and dry by the time I'm ready to use it. And I'm down to just one or two pieces of birch left inside. And it's soooo comfortable and warm inside. Stirring up some of that ambition stuff, but it's tough to do from a semi-horizontal position.

I feel under assault by serious nap rays.

The inside wood box hold about 10 days of heat,
Works out well, time to empty the stove by then anyway.
With these colder temps, maybe a few days less, but I'm good for a few more days, by then it's supposed to warm up to the high teens to low 20s.

dave thats some weather there. i have cousins in fairbanks and one in anchorage. crazy cold the temps in fairbanks the last few days. i love working outside on a 10 degree day. i have lots of wood to split this winter and im hoping for some nice cold days to do it. also love working in it at work. i have really come to hate summer. specially when its a 100 degrees and im in an attic. i myself would love to move some place with much cooler summer and colder winters. although we had some record cold last year. im hopin for that again this year.

Sister's husband in Portage said the temp was "Freeze the nose hairs cold" . . .

My indoor wood storage gets me through from Sunday evening to Saturday morning in warmer temps, but in this weather, not so long. Needs to get topped off midweek.

Okay, losing daylight and just remembered I left my boots at work. Changed into office shoes and forgot to change them out when I came home. This will be more interesting. Y'all kick me off of here if I try to post again before I have the wood rack full. Lazy Saturday afternoon was great, but it's over now. DS is off for the weekend on a school trip (at a camp on a lake, bet they're having fun-- :lol so this one is on me. Dog and cat will be providing moral support from the horizontal position: "You go, boss! You're number one! You rock! Check the food dish on your way outside, will ya?"

ETA Okay, I've earned my seat back at the fire: three sled loads each of spruce and birch, had to split some of the spruce rounds, and dragged down one of the Rubbermaid tubs full of wood scraps for kindling. Put on Prairie Home Companion, and the Powdermilk Biscuit ad gave me the strength to get up and do what had to get done. Sunroom looks like a woodlot--I brought in enough wood to cover me in case the temps drop again-- and in a few minutes I'll go down and tidy up, water my plants, make a sandwich, and put on a movie and call it a Saturday.

The inversion must have kicked in, because I spoke to a friend earlier who said that it's -30 in town, and it's a balmy zero out up here. Found a pair of the Alaska woman's secret weapon in my closet (see links below). I took the time to dress for the cold, and felt like I could be out there for hours. Beautiful evening, sky deep cobalt, stars starting to come out, sunset fading behind the mountains, snow is full and soft and covering the trees. Remembered last year this time when I was digging wood out from under snow and pulling it uphill to the house. This year all my wood is under overhanging roofs, and the birch is uphill this time--I just load the sled, pull it over about ten feet, and push it down the hill, and another 20' pull into the house. Piece of cake. World felt like a peaceful place. I got a kick out of remembering that the last time I handled some of that wood, I was sweating in the summer sun, anticipating the day that I would come back and find it here when I needed it. Felt like closing a circle, and found myself thinking forward to next summer when I hope to do the same thing. Worse ways to spend an hour on Saturday.

Regional Forecast for Middle Tanana Valley
Tonight Clear. Patchy ice fog after midnight. Lows 25 to 40 below...except around 10 below on the hills. Mainly light winds...locally east around 10 mph.

Lobbens: http://www.winterboots.net/
and a word from the death bikers, as I respectfully call them: http://forums.mtbr.com/alaska/lobbens-neos-both-487055.html When you see someone peddling through the ice fog at -30 wearing bunnies and a parka, you know you're looking at people who take resolve to a whole new level . . .

Well if a front comes thru with the jet stream helping. the lower 48 are in for quit a big blast of cold air.
It's a big, almost state wide high pressure area pushing all the low pressure fronts south.
When we get one big enough to push thru, high winds & look out below. It's gonna get cold.
I for one am ready to share some of these record low temperatures. Good for polar bears any way.
We don't usually get these temps until January.

Just saw in icecap.us (an excellent wx site) Made me think of your post

COLDEST NOVEMBER TEMPERATURE AT FAIRBANKS SINCE 1994

FAIRBANKS, Alaska - Alaska�s second-largest city is used to cold weather, but few residents expected record-breaking cold this early in the season. Shawn Ross has lived in Fairbanks his entire life and says few people were prepared for this severe of a cold snap in mid-November. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports that for the second time in three days, Fairbanks set a new low temperature record on Thursday. A temperature of 41 degrees below zero - the first 40 below temperature of the season - was recorded at Fairbanks International Airport at 6:29 a.m. The National Weather Service in Fairbanks says that broke the old record of 39 below set in 1969. The last time Fairbanks residents saw 40-below temperatures in November was in 1994.

Fairbanks set a new record of 35 below on Tuesday and the temperature bottomed out at 39 below on Wednesday, two degrees shy of the record.

Thursday’s record low of 41 below marked the sixth earliest 40-below temperature recorded by the National Weather Service in Fairbanks since 1904. The earliest it�s ever hit 40 below in Fairbanks was Nov. 5, 1907, when it hit 41 below.

OTOH, -40 in November is about as cold as -40 in January, and I think we usually see it drop that far each year. Now if we got down into the brutal cold stuff, people would be in trouble. One thing that's going to help is that we have a nice thick snow layer down. The frost shouldn't go a lot deeper than it already has. This is good news for water lines, septic lines, as well as the shrews, voles, etc. that need the insulation.

As our member from North Pole pointed out, the cold, and it's aftermaths, are a lot easier to deal with than the three-day freezing rain we got this time last year. Might go through the wood a little faster though.

Has been a "non-typical" cold spell for this time of the year.
We even got about an inch of snow, real powdery stuff.
Wind to pick up to 30 MPH this afternoon so the snow will go somewhere.
High of 5°. So -20 chill factor.
Sub zeros thru Sunday. The frost level is going deep for sure.
Fairbanks folks are a tough bunch, I think anything 10°f & below is cold, they were sweaters until -15

My cousing lives in anchorage but works in Prudhoe bay. He's retired air force. And now works as an emt/dispatch there. And he says its just been ridiculously cold.

Some years ago, Anch had little or no snow with some -20s & -30s, the 12' deep water lines froze, broken pipes near Fire hydrants, flooded streets & made several ice rinks.
Winters are busy times on the slope, exploration over the tundra on ice roads, moving rigs, pipeline maintenance going on. It's the only time they can get out on the tundra.
& Dark 24/7.
No mosquitoes now though.

i guess your frost line is a little different than ours are here. yeah dont think theres any skeeters out in that.