The January 2019 Polar Vortex and your Apple Devices!

[Annie_M]

So how is everyone who has been affected by the Polar Vortex doing? What precautions did you take to prepare for the dangerous cold? If you're like me, your iPhones and Apple Watches will have been sounding like a pinball machine with all the weather alerts going off. Granted, I have over a half dozen weather apps! It's been interesting to see the "variety" of temperature and windchill reporting. I'm going to delete a couple of my apps because they were rather far off from the others. Smartphones and other wearable technology have the potential to be a huge benefit during horrible weather.

I had the day off yesterday thanks to the weather and was surfing around looking at all sorts of weather-related apps. I found and installed iMore article!

I invite you to share your experiences, tips, and suggestions on how to get through a dangerous weather situation like this current Polar Vortex!

 

[RaybanRJ]

This is like summer weather for Canada

 

[Annie_M]

Like many people around the US yesterday, we were under Wind Advisories and Warnings all day yesterday. Weather forecasters had been predicting this for a couple of days. The winds were fierce…. with gusts up to 60 mph, and even higher in some places! The power flickered a few times, but luckily never went out. Other people in surrounding communities weren’t so lucky- many were without power for over 12 hours. As we were getting ready for bed last night, we had the 11 PM news on. They were suggesting that people should prepare weather emergency kits in case of a power outage. Items in the emergency kits should include power banks with a full charger, charging cables and power inverters. As I do every time we are expecting severe weather, I made sure that all my devices were charged, as well as my power-banks.

 

[iPutz]

I’m in northern Illinois so we have had our share of high winds and very low temps. Two days ago our power went out and stayed out for about 18 hours. Fortunately I have an 8500 watt generator that is set up so that I can start it up, turn off the main breaker for the house then plug the generator into my power panel and keep the house warm and not really have to cut back on power usage from normal. We have two cars that I can drain fuel from if needed so we could last for a week or more without ever leaving the house. The only precaution I have to take is to crack the garage door open about 4 inches and connect a special hose to the generator’s exhaust to direct the exhaust to an area about 20 feet from the garage door. I’ve had some complaints from my neighbors about the noise, but I never run the generator after 11:00pm or before 6:00am so I figure they’re just jealous because I’m comfortable and they’re not.

 

[Annie_M]

I’m in northern Illinois so we have had our share of high winds and very low temps. Two days ago our power went out and stayed out for about 18 hours. Fortunately I have an 8500 watt generator that is set up so that I can start it up, turn off the main breaker for the house then plug the generator into my power panel and keep the house warm and not really have to cut back on power usage from normal. We have two cars that I can drain fuel from if needed so we could last for a week or more without ever leaving the house. The only precaution I have to take is to crack the garage door open about 4 inches and connect a special hose to the generator’s exhaust to direct the exhaust to an area about 20 feet from the garage door. I’ve had some complaints from my neighbors about the noise, but I never run the generator after 11:00pm or before 6:00am so I figure they’re just jealous because I’m comfortable and they’re not.

That's an awesome tip about draining the gas from your cars if needed! You guys have had a pretty rough winter!

 

[iPutz]

The most important part is ducting the exhaust gasses away from the house then making sure to turn off the main breaker so you’re not trying to power the whole neighborhood. Other than that everything is rather straight foreword.