Winter camping - a learning experience
The forecast was for mid 30's in the daytime and dipping to mid 20's at night and all was clear when we decided to camp for our visit up north for Thanksgiving. We knew it could be a little "iffy" but decided to go prepared to re-winterize the TT if it was going to get too cold.
As we went north, everything got whiter and whiter. We got the the CG to find 4 or 6 inches of snow. They scrapped off the worst of it from the site.
Here we are set up:
The first night was just as they predicted. No big deal, the heater kept up and shut off at the temp setting as it should (holding about 65 inside for the night). The forecast was for nicer weather the second day, so we figured we'd be fine. WRONG - day 2 got worse. It never reached the predicted high temp and dropped to 23 or so by 4PM and kept dropping. By 8 PM, we returned to the camper from visiting family and we found the heat was barely keeping up and the water had already frozen. Too late for me to even guess what I might do to lessen the damage at that point. So we bundled up and watched a movie and went to bed. I got up in the AM to find it dropped to 7 for most of the night. They are talking on the news about the "unexpected cold" that was the lowest they had seen since the previous February.
About 9 am the sun hit the TT and all was warm again within an hour. I blew a hairdryer down around the water pump and through the plumbing duct and all the water cam back to working -- appears to be nothing damaged. I drained and winterized before we packed up to leave to head home around noon.
So what have I learned? The forecasts may usually be fairly reliable where I live - but not so in NY Southern Tier.
As we went north, everything got whiter and whiter. We got the the CG to find 4 or 6 inches of snow. They scrapped off the worst of it from the site.
Here we are set up:
The first night was just as they predicted. No big deal, the heater kept up and shut off at the temp setting as it should (holding about 65 inside for the night). The forecast was for nicer weather the second day, so we figured we'd be fine. WRONG - day 2 got worse. It never reached the predicted high temp and dropped to 23 or so by 4PM and kept dropping. By 8 PM, we returned to the camper from visiting family and we found the heat was barely keeping up and the water had already frozen. Too late for me to even guess what I might do to lessen the damage at that point. So we bundled up and watched a movie and went to bed. I got up in the AM to find it dropped to 7 for most of the night. They are talking on the news about the "unexpected cold" that was the lowest they had seen since the previous February.
About 9 am the sun hit the TT and all was warm again within an hour. I blew a hairdryer down around the water pump and through the plumbing duct and all the water cam back to working -- appears to be nothing damaged. I drained and winterized before we packed up to leave to head home around noon.
So what have I learned? The forecasts may usually be fairly reliable where I live - but not so in NY Southern Tier.
