Starting your vehicle in the extreme cold

OK so we got our first taste of winter in Metro Vancouver this morning. The warm currents from down south have given us a very mild and wet winter this year thanks to the El Nino. Yet just like in 2010, the El Nino winter in Vancouver had a late start. We finally had some cold arctic air move down south that was able to over ride the warmer currents moving north.

So it was minus 15 Celsius on the ride into work this morning. We didn't get the precipitation so the roads were bare and dry. Nice. Just a little chilly. I was a bit worried about being able to start my bike in the morning because whenever it's around minus 10 it's sometimes hard to start. I hooked up the battery to a charger over night and wrapped my motorcycle blanket around the radiator and crank case. Starting it this morning was no problem.

However, when I went out to warm up my bike during my break at work it wouldn't start and the battery was almost dead. I was like oh no. That hasn't happened before. So I unhooked the battery and brought it inside for the rest of my shift. Thankfully it had warmed up slightly outside and the battery was warm enough to start the bike no problem when I was off work. Thank God.

I was speaking with my neighbor who has lived in Alberta and asked him about block heaters in the extreme cold. He explained that you need two heaters. One for the crank case and one for the radiator. I thought you needed one for the battery. Having a new battery helps.

He said you need one for the crack case because if the oil gets too cold it becomes very thick and it takes too much juice to turn the engine over. He said if it's minus 40 with a windchill you need to put cardboard in front of your radiator. He said if you don't the wind chill when you drive could freeze your coolant even with anti freeze.

He said in areas where it's that cold everywhere you go you have outlets to plug in your block heater. If you don't use them your car won't start when you get back from shopping. This is all new to us in the lower mainland but since we're all leaving Metro Vancouver for rural areas that are much colder during winter it's something we have to adapt to.

The mountains look awesome in the sunshine with all that crystallized snow on them. The ski hills will have the snow machines making fresh snow but the snowshoe trails will be packed and icy. Perfect for crampons. A lot of people use those tiny chains that fit over a hiking boot but I prefer the big teeth on crampons. The're much faster going up and much safer climbing down.

Okanagan ski hills shut down due to bitter cold temperatures

Global is reporting that "Businesses that normally thrive during the winter are being impacted by arctic winds and bitterly cold temperatures. Several ski hills across B.C., including in the Okanagan, were forced to temporarily shut down due to safety concerns."

"Apex Mountain Resort near Penticton shut down all operations on Friday. The resort said there will also be no night skiing on Friday or Saturday due to the cold temperatures, while normal day operations are expected to resume on Saturday." -32 plus wind chill.

So a couple of weeks ago Justan Idiot was ranting about climate change because of the warm El Nino and now it's cold as f*ck. This is exactly what I said happened in Vancouver during the 2010 El Nino. The mountains had a late start to winter but got pounded with snow in the New Year.