The 8-Bit Guys house in Texas

[boffin]

One of the many reasons not to live in Texas. lol

Ha!!... I'm reminded of one of the (factual) quotes by some Aussies when Americans talk about how everything
is so big there....  Well, in Australia, we have a single privately owned cattle station in the out-back, that is
bigger than the whole State of Texas !!  I don't know what it proves, but it's true! haha... 

Yeah, not quite.

Largest Ranch Australia: 3,340km2 (Anna Creek Station)
Texas: 696,662km2
Alaska: 1,717,856 km2

[Sal Ammoniac]

One of the many reasons not to live in Texas. lol

Ha!!... I'm reminded of one of the (factual) quotes by some Aussies when Americans talk about how everything
is so big there....  Well, in Australia, we have a single privately owned cattle station in the out-back, that is
bigger than the whole State of Texas !!  I don't know what it proves, but it's true! haha... 

When I was in Alaska several years ago, t-shirts comparing Alaska and Texas were popular:

[james_s]

During the -15°C night, where temps inside the house reached 2°C

Those temperatures I can only find inside my fridge. Living in such conditions for me is inconceivable.

I'd much rather deal with -15C temperatures than 40C temperatures. It's a lot easier to warm up than it is to cool down.

[dolbeau]

For example, we normally think of Canada as a cold country, but the west coast has a similar climate to Northern Europe, with Vancouver and Calais having similar average temperatures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver#Climate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calais#Geography_and_climate

Yes, and from those very pages Vancouver is 49°15′39″N, while Calais is 50°56′53″N, or almost 200km more northern for Calais. They may have similar climates, but at dissimilar latitudes.

New York is 40.71'°N, technically south of Barcelona (41°23′N). Average low for January in New York is -2.8°C, for Barcelona 8.8°C. Snow is a common winter event in New York ; it's very rare in Barcelona. Very similar latitude, very dissimilar climate.

Bordeaux is 44°50′N and has very extensive vineyards, famously. I could be missing on something, but I'm not aware of much wine shipping from Halifax (44°52′N) - it seems unlike Bordeaux, the climate doesn't agree with the vines...

The east coast *is* colder than western Europe at similar latitudes.

... though global warming might change this; anyone know a good spot to grow vines near Halifax in the future? :-)

Edit: ... I should have remembered which coast Vancouver is on *before* posting :-) Can't find good latitude matches on the west coast (Bordeaux is at a similar latitude to Salem, Oregon, of which I confess I know nothing about...)

[vad]

One of the many reasons not to live in Texas. lol

Ha!!... I'm reminded of one of the (factual) quotes by some Aussies when Americans talk about how everything
is so big there....  Well, in Australia, we have a single privately owned cattle station in the out-back, that is
bigger than the whole State of Texas !!  I don't know what it proves, but it's true! haha... 

When I was in Alaska several years ago, t-shirts comparing Alaska and Texas were popular:

Don’t get me started on comparing size of Siberia (just one region of Russia) to the size of Australia, Alaska and Texas combined

[drussell]

They may have similar climates, but at dissimilar latitudes.

You do realize that there is a lot more to the overall climate in a given geographical area than just latitude, right?!   

[drussell]

Bordeaux is 44°50′N and has very extensive vineyards, famously. I could be missing on something, but I'm not aware of much wine shipping from Halifax (44°52′N) - it seems unlike Bordeaux, the climate doesn't agree with the vines...
...
though global warming might change this; anyone know a good spot to grow vines near Halifax in the future? :-)

Actually, Nova Scotia is one of the more prolific wine producing regions in Canada...

[dolbeau]

You do realize that there is a lot more to the overall climate in a given geographical area than just latitude, right?!   

Presumably I do, as that was the point I was making by then showing very different climates at the same latitude :-)

I probably over-trimmed the post I was answering to. Canada *is* a cold country compared to European country of similar latitudes, and the Gulf Stream certainly has a part in that. The Kuroshio Current plays a similar role on the west coast, as mentioned by another poster.

[Howardlong]

For a typical US build house that is. As JohnnyMalaria stated there is a huge difference between how houses are build in Europe versus the US. In Europe a typical house is built to be there for 100+ years. You can throw water and wind at it but worst case you need to replace some roof tiles, windows / doors and/or wall paper.

Slightly OT, but office buildings in high rent areas can barely last 40 years here in London before being levelled and completely rebuilt. Even old historically significant buildings aren't always protected, the modus operandi of the landlord is to leave the building empty in a dilapidated state until it's so unsafe they manage to get permission to level it and redevelop. I've lost count of the number of apparently perfectly serviceable buildings I've worked in over the years that just aren't there any more, replaced by designs with even more gleaming glass. The browns of the 70s and 80s are being pushed out by the greys with floor to ceiling shininess. As a result, much of London is a permanent building site.

Oh, and then there's always this way to achieve new build that's around the corner from me.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-54794723
https://chelseasociety.org.uk/1790-house-collapses/

[dolbeau]

Actually, Nova Scotia is one of the more prolific wine producing regions in Canada...

Well, you learn something new every day. Wine and Frenchmen... we think we know everything and unsurprisingly it turns out we don't :-)

And looking at the Wines of Nova Scotia website (could have checked *that* before posting...), they're trying for Pinot Noir as well. Kinda intrigued I must say. Not that any shops here will carry any of it for me to try (if you want to meet an angry french shopkeeper, ask for some New World wines in a french wine shop...).

[Zero999]

Interesting. What did you do in Cambridge?

Drove mindlessly up and down the A10 to Ware until I found an escape route to the sun

That's one of the oldest myths in the book or meteorology. The UK gets very little heat from the Gulf Stream. The reason why Western Europe is colder, than corresponding parallels on the eastern side of North America, is because it's downwind of a large expanse of ocean. Western North America has similar temperatures to equivalent latitudes in Western Europe, because of the westerlies blowing over the warm Pacific. The east coasts of large landmasses are uniquely cold. The nearby sea limits summer warmth and in winter, the wind has blown over a the freezing continent, although it's a little less cold then, than further inland.

I have to disagree. Cambridge, for example, is the same latitude as Labrador. Much of the rain in NW Europe is exactly because of the moist air carried by the gulf stream eventually cooling enough to dump the water. Watch the path tropical waves off the west coast of Africa typically take - they head towards the east US and then travel up the coast on the gulf stream only to dump on Europe. The reasons that make NW Europe warmer than the American Atlantic coastal regions at the same latitude are the same as why the Pacific waters are much cooler than the Atlantic equivalents - large clockwise currents in the northern hemisphere.

Labrador is on the east cost of a large land mass, so it will be colder, than the same parallel on the other side of the Atlantic. Sakhalin island on the east coast of Russia is much colder, than Cambridge, even though it's much further south, on 46° parallel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk#Geography_and_climate

The Gulf Stream provides very little heat to Western Europe. The wind transports much more heat energy from the equator, to Europe, than the Gulf Stream. Here's a link to an article which explains it quite well.
http://ocp.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/gs/

For example, we normally think of Canada as a cold country, but the west coast has a similar climate to Northern Europe, with Vancouver and Calais having similar average temperatures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver#Climate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calais#Geography_and_climate

Yes, and from those very pages Vancouver is 49°15′39″N, while Calais is 50°56′53″N, or almost 200km more northern for Calais. They may have similar climates, but at dissimilar latitudes.

Calais and Vancouver are on similar latitudes: 200km hardly makes any difference to the annual average temperature.

New York is 40.71'°N, technically south of Barcelona (41°23′N). Average low for January in New York is -2.8°C, for Barcelona 8.8°C. Snow is a common winter event in New York ; it's very rare in Barcelona. Very similar latitude, very dissimilar climate.

Bordeaux is 44°50′N and has very extensive vineyards, famously. I could be missing on something, but I'm not aware of much wine shipping from Halifax (44°52′N) - it seems unlike Bordeaux, the climate doesn't agree with the vines...

The east coast *is* colder than western Europe at similar latitudes.

... though global warming might change this; anyone know a good spot to grow vines near Halifax in the future? :-)

No global warming won't change it. Western Europe will always be warmer, than Eastern North America.

Edit: ... I should have remembered which coast Vancouver is on *before* posting :-) Can't find good latitude matches on the west coast (Bordeaux is at a similar latitude to Salem, Oregon, of which I confess I know nothing about...)

I'm not saying that the west coast of North America has exactly the same climate, as Europe. It doesn't, but it's much more similar to Europe, temperature wise, than Eastern Canada, because it's downwind of a large ocean. The arrangement of landmasses, mountains and sea surface temperatures make a difference to both rainfall and temperature, but not so much as being downwind of a large ocean vs a continent.

Another example is Quimper, Northwestern France and Seattle. Granted, they're not exactly at the same latitude and don't have exactly the same temperatures, but they're both much warmer than Eastern North America and East Asia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quimper#Climate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle#Climate

Here's a post, based on the article I linked to above, with some pictures. Note that the North Atlantic current misses most of the UK and goes up to Iceland and Norway.
https://all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/2012/06/what-do-you-mean-the-gulf-stream-doesnt-keep-europe-warm-how-even-scientists-are-afflicted-by-urban-myths/

[Renate]

We can argue about weather, but we can't argue about latitude.
I'm in the US but at the latitude of Algeria.
That does have certain advantages for solar power compared to Finland.

[boffin]

Actually, Nova Scotia is one of the more prolific wine producing regions in Canada...

No, not really, Ontario & BC account for 95% of Canadian wine production, Nova Scotia is a drop in the barrel by comparison, in 2015 there was only 256 ha of vineyard in NS.

But back to comparison,  while Halifax and Bordeaux are on the same latitude, you'd never get a 'Bordeaux Grape' (Cab Sav, Cab Franc, Merlot...) to grow in Nova Scotia.  What NS produces (white wines) are much more akin to what germany and austria (not australia) produce.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Interesting. What did you do in Cambridge?

Drove mindlessly up and down the A10 to Ware until I found an escape route to the sun

That's one of the oldest myths in the book or meteorology. The UK gets very little heat from the Gulf Stream. The reason why Western Europe is colder, than corresponding parallels on the eastern side of North America, is because it's downwind of a large expanse of ocean. Western North America has similar temperatures to equivalent latitudes in Western Europe, because of the westerlies blowing over the warm Pacific. The east coasts of large landmasses are uniquely cold. The nearby sea limits summer warmth and in winter, the wind has blown over a the freezing continent, although it's a little less cold then, than further inland.

I have to disagree. Cambridge, for example, is the same latitude as Labrador. Much of the rain in NW Europe is exactly because of the moist air carried by the gulf stream eventually cooling enough to dump the water. Watch the path tropical waves off the west coast of Africa typically take - they head towards the east US and then travel up the coast on the gulf stream only to dump on Europe. The reasons that make NW Europe warmer than the American Atlantic coastal regions at the same latitude are the same as why the Pacific waters are much cooler than the Atlantic equivalents - large clockwise currents in the northern hemisphere.

Labrador is on the east cost of a large land mass, so it will be colder, than the same parallel on the other side of the Atlantic. Sakhalin island on the east coast of Russia is much colder, than Cambridge, even though it's much further south, on 46° parallel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk#Geography_and_climate

The Gulf Stream provides very little heat to Western Europe. The wind transports much more heat energy from the equator, to Europe, than the Gulf Stream. Here's a link to an article which explains it quite well.
http://ocp.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/gs/

For example, we normally think of Canada as a cold country, but the west coast has a similar climate to Northern Europe, with Vancouver and Calais having similar average temperatures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver#Climate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calais#Geography_and_climate

Yes, and from those very pages Vancouver is 49°15′39″N, while Calais is 50°56′53″N, or almost 200km more northern for Calais. They may have similar climates, but at dissimilar latitudes.

Calais and Vancouver are on similar latitudes: 200km hardly makes any difference to the annual average temperature.

New York is 40.71'°N, technically south of Barcelona (41°23′N). Average low for January in New York is -2.8°C, for Barcelona 8.8°C. Snow is a common winter event in New York ; it's very rare in Barcelona. Very similar latitude, very dissimilar climate.

Bordeaux is 44°50′N and has very extensive vineyards, famously. I could be missing on something, but I'm not aware of much wine shipping from Halifax (44°52′N) - it seems unlike Bordeaux, the climate doesn't agree with the vines...

The east coast *is* colder than western Europe at similar latitudes.

... though global warming might change this; anyone know a good spot to grow vines near Halifax in the future? :-)

No global warming won't change it. Western Europe will always be warmer, than Eastern North America.

Edit: ... I should have remembered which coast Vancouver is on *before* posting :-) Can't find good latitude matches on the west coast (Bordeaux is at a similar latitude to Salem, Oregon, of which I confess I know nothing about...)

I'm not saying that the west coast of North America has exactly the same climate, as Europe. It doesn't, but it's much more similar to Europe, temperature wise, than Eastern Canada, because it's downwind of a large ocean. The arrangement of landmasses, mountains and sea surface temperatures make a difference to both rainfall and temperature, but not so much as being downwind of a large ocean vs a continent.

Another example is Quimper, Northwestern France and Seattle. Granted, they're not exactly at the same latitude and don't have exactly the same temperatures, but they're both much warmer than Eastern North America and East Asia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quimper#Climate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle#Climate

Here's a post, based on the article I linked to above, with some pictures. Note that the North Atlantic current misses most of the UK and goes up to Iceland and Norway.
https://all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/2012/06/what-do-you-mean-the-gulf-stream-doesnt-keep-europe-warm-how-even-scientists-are-afflicted-by-urban-myths/

This has got me thinking

I used to live in Bristol - it was very wet a lot of the time. After a 2 year hiatus in Texas, I lived in Melbourn. I was struck by how different the weather was in the east of England compared to the west. I remember remarking that I hadn't used my windscreen wipers in nearly 3 months. The east of the country was also more prone to the bitter cold from Siberia.

Most of the winter rains in the UK come from Atlantic weather systems which are usually former tropical depressions often carried north by the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic Current. The western British Isles is certainly heavily influenced by the Gulf Stream. And to illustrate the diversity of weather in England further, I grew up in Portsmouth. In the summer, there were frequent nightly thunderstorms that came from France. I don't think I recall a decent thunderstorm in Cambs. Of course, none compared to the daily 4pm monsters in Texas and the insane rapid temperature drop (15degC in 10 minutes one time).

[Gyro]

The thing that really controls our short term (1week - 1 month) weather is the tortuous path that the Jet Stream takes over the Atlantic. This flips up and down, roughly centred on the UK. If it flips North of the UK it pulls up hot / humid weather from Southern Europe and Africa (Saharan dust on the cars). If centred it tends to pull in medium temperature damp air from the Atlantic. If it flips down across northern Europe, then it pulls down Arctic air from Siberia.

The direction and speed of the Jet Stream, you can get some fairly different weather in different parts of the UK - as JohnnyMalaria mentioned, wetter in the west, a tendency to be colder in the East, and thunderstorms being dragged up over the channel in the South (and particularly South East). Underneath all of this lies the long term effect of the warm water from the Gulf Stream running up the West coast, giving a tendency for warmer weather in Cornwall and the West coast in general (as far North as the West coast of Scotland.

Whilst we don't get the massive excursions of some more extreme climates, we get lots of day to day, week to week variability which leads to the semi-myth that the British are always talking about the weather.

Unfortunately the Jet Stream is becoming more energetic and variable over time, leading to more unpredictable weather, more frequent flooding events, storms and occasionally some spectacularly short US - UK flight times.

[Zero999]

It's been disproven a long time ago that the Gulf Stream is the main driver for mild European winters. The west of England is milder and wetter, than the east, because the west is closer to the Atlantic and the east is nearer to the continent. A similar pattern repeats over North America, from west to east.

Yes, it's the jet stream which governs our weather. It's true it's affected by sea surface temperatures, but the correlation isn't direct. A warm North Atlantic doesn't necessarily mean milder winters for Europe. The temperature of the North Pacific, has a greater impact.

Links to sea surfaces temperature anomalies, at the end of Novembers 2010 and 2015, which preceded the coldest and mildest Decembers ever recorded in the UK. The Atlantic was much warmer at the end of 2010, than 2015. The difference was the Pacific was much colder in 2010, especially the north.
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.11.29.2010.gif
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomnight.11.30.2015.gif

Of course there are many other factors. The weather has changed from cold in the first half of February, to near record breaking warm this week, because the jet stream has moved northwards, due to the North Atlantic oscillation flipping to the positive phase and now the wind is now coming from the Azores, rather than Svalbard. The sea surface temperatures haven't changed much and Gulf Stream didn't go way when it was cold and return now it's milder.

[bsfeechannel]

I'd much rather deal with -15C temperatures than 40C temperatures. It's a lot easier to warm up than it is to cool down.

Can't agree more.

[JohnnyMalaria]

It's been disproven a long time ago that the Gulf Stream is the main driver for mild European winters. The west of England is milder and wetter, than the east, because the west is closer to the Atlantic and the east is nearer to the continent. A similar pattern repeats over North America, from west to east.

Yes, it's the jet stream which governs our weather. It's true it's affected by sea surface temperatures, but the correlation isn't direct. A warm North Atlantic doesn't necessarily mean milder winters for Europe. The temperature of the North Pacific, has a greater impact.

Links to sea surfaces temperature anomalies, at the end of Novembers 2010 and 2015, which preceded the coldest and mildest Decembers ever recorded in the UK. The Atlantic was much warmer at the end of 2010, than 2015. The difference was the Pacific was much colder in 2010, especially the north.
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.11.29.2010.gif
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomnight.11.30.2015.gif

Of course there are many other factors. The weather has changed from cold in the first half of February, to near record breaking warm this week, because the jet stream has moved northwards, due to the North Atlantic oscillation flipping to the positive phase and now the wind is now coming from the Azores, rather than Svalbard. The sea surface temperatures haven't changed much and Gulf Stream didn't go way when it was cold and return now it's milder.

NOAA seems quite convinced of the importance of the Gulf Stream: https://scijinks.gov/gulf-stream/

And you can't really decouple the two: http://www.actforlibraries.org/jet-stream-gulf-stream-polar-shifts-and-climate-changes/

[boffin]

Actually, Nova Scotia is one of the more prolific wine producing regions in Canada...

Well, you learn something new every day. Wine and Frenchmen... we think we know everything and unsurprisingly it turns out we don't :-)

And looking at the Wines of Nova Scotia website (could have checked *that* before posting...), they're trying for Pinot Noir as well. Kinda intrigued I must say. Not that any shops here will carry any of it for me to try (if you want to meet an angry french shopkeeper, ask for some New World wines in a french wine shop...).

Wine regions can be somewhat unexpected.  The hottest temperatures in Canada, and the only largish region growing Bordeaux or GSM wines is the very southern end of the Okanagan Valley the towns of Penticton/Oliver/Osoyoos, temps reach 40C in the summer, and only get 15-30cm rain/year.  Even getting 50km from the US border, the weather changes enough that from Penticton north, it's more Pinot Noir and white varietals.

Someone else mentioned Salem Oregon, and from a wine point of view, many French producers purchased land in the area, feeling it was the only appropriate terroir for Burgundy, outside of Burgundy itself and the produce some very good Pinots along with quite excellent sparkling wine.

[Nominal Animal]

The west of England is milder and wetter, than the east, because the west is closer to the Atlantic and the east is nearer to the continent. A similar pattern repeats over North America, from west to east.

Not very similar, though:


I do not know what is the main driver, but I definitely would not claim the Gulf Stream is irrelevant.  (Note, neither did Zero999; they just said it is not the main driver.)  The average winter temperature difference between Nunavut, Canada; Southern Greenland; and Iceland, breaks the "east-west part of continent dictates it" assertion, as they are all surrounded by ocean.

The main reason I am wary of any simple explanations, is that Medieval Warm Period occurred, between c. 950 and 1100 Common Era.  During this time, Vikings in (the southernmost tip of) Greenland had cattle, sheep, and goats, and only a quarter of their diet was seafood.  By 1300, three quarters of their diet came from seal hunting, as livestock just couldn't handle the harsh winters.  We do not know why it occurred: all we know is correlation, and can only guess (and try to simulate to ascertain) the causation.

I grew up in Finland, north of the arctic circle (so about 6° further north), and for example potatoes, carrots, rutabaga, and onions grow just fine even at 330m above sea level there. (At the bottom of a couple of fell lakes, well above the treeline, there are still rather large tree trunks from the Medieval Warm Period, too.)  So, it is not a small difference in winter temperatures; it is a clear difference that affects the entire biome.

The exact circulation patterns in the North Atlantic are rather interesting,


Finally, comparing to the 10°C July mean isotherm (red line),

we can see that the summer mean temperature differs quite a bit from the winter mean temperatures in eastern Siberia and Alaska.  This supports the reasoning for continental effect on the climate (continental winters being colder, summers hotter).  However, the way Bering Sea summers are much colder than say Iceland clearly undermines that reasoning.  In other words, simple theories based only on the polar jet stream, or only on the Gulf Stream, are doomed to fail even a cursory examination.

[JohnnyMalaria]

And palm trees grow in Scotland

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/6659301.stm

[EEVblog]

Was I the only one that saw this and went "WTF, it snows in TEXAS?!"
Seriously, I did that, I had no idea.

[Nominal Animal]

I got the picture that this is rare (as in once every couple of decades sort of thing), but not unprecedented.
(And that media is being a bit clickbaity in their "record-setting" claims, as this is generally not breaking any "all-time" records, just the last two or three decades.)

Even though these things are impossible to predict, we know the overall mechanism of how they occur.  The Wikipedia articles on the polar vortex (which keeps cold arctic air "confined" when strong, and "leaks" cold air south when weak) and Rossby waves (the polar jet stream being at the boundary of the polar vortex, and is a type of Rossby wave) describe the structure of the phenomenon, with the article on the (polar) jet stream providing interesting information on the polar jet stream itself, like it being surprisingly high in the atmosphere, at 9 - 12 km high, basically above the cloud layers.

Still, the complexity is in the details.  For example, when a "droplet" of cold air "detaches" from the polar vortex, it is very difficult to predict where it will collide with warmer wetter air causing snowfall.  Even in Finland, it is possible (but rare) that the very southernmost Finland has more snow than the northernmost parts, almost 1000 km north.

The funkiest region weather-wise in Finland is the 100 km or so north from the Bothnian Bay, where the weather changes from "central Finland" to "northern Finland" (for geographical reasons).  I take a roadtrip north-south across Finland a few times each year, and in this region, the difference/change in weather tends to be the biggest.

The funkiest region weather/biome-wise in Fennoscandia, in my opinion, is the trip from Kilpisjärvi (in northwesternmost tip of Finland) northwest to Skibotn in Norway, on the coast of Arctic ocean; only some 50 km or so, but also dropping some 500m in altitude.  The Finnish side is decidedly arctic, with few stunted trees and scattered shrubbery (actually dwarf birch, betula nana); with the Norwegian side, quickly tending to lush green forests.  It's amazing in the late spring: like literally coming from wintery tundra to summer within the span of an hour.  The Google Street View of traversing E8 northwest towards Norway captures some of it, in case you're into that sort of thing.

[rsjsouza]

Was I the only one that saw this and went "WTF, it snows in TEXAS?!"
Seriously, I did that, I had no idea.

West Texas can be incredibly cold in certain areas. Amarillo in the far west of the state easily reaches sub-zero ºC during winter.

I got the picture that this is rare (as in once every couple of decades sort of thing), but not unprecedented.
(And that media is being a bit clickbaity in their "record-setting" claims, as this is generally not breaking any "all-time" records, just the last two or three decades.)

A bit? 

As for records, the 1929 Blizzard in Texas was quite devastating, but a much more recent blizzard in 2015 did not reach the international headlines as this one (maybe due to the political landscape and constant mud flinging to the other side?). We were not hit with snow as severe as in cities west from here, but I only remember the terrible completely off-season tornados that stroke houses not very far from where I live.

Nationwide, the worst weather conditions were in 1880/1881:

[unixb0y]

'Bailing out' without shutting off the water was IQ below (unheated) room temperature stupid.  A smart guy would have shut off the water and drained as much of the plumbing as was practical without special tools or compressed air.

From when I was little, I remember we always shutting off the water of our garage in winter and reopening it in summer, it's kind of a no brainer if you know "its gonna get cold" to me tbh