ORLANDO, Fla. – I hope you’re already up to speed on the powerful blast of polar and arctic air coming right at us Thursday night. The extensive impacts will be felt through the evening on Thursday and even more so as we start our Friday morning.
We’ve got your pipes, pets, and plants covered. You can find more information here on ClickOrlando to get those pieces of your home and loved ones ready to brave the cold.
I also wanted to mention a forgotten, but significant entity in our lives – transportation. A cold outbreak like this can really do some damage if your car isn’t ready to sustain the brunt of the freezing temps.
Ask yourself, “when’s the last time I changed my battery? Topped off my antifreeze? Do I run antifreeze in my car? Has my engine stuttered at all when trying to start it? When was the last time you took a walk around your car to check tires? Do you know if you have any slow leaks? Picked up any debris?”
When temperatures go from highs like we saw earlier this week down to the 20s or 30s overnight, you can sometimes wake up to a dead electrical system or flat tires.
A combination of the two just makes for a bad day -- and likely a nagging headache.
Your tires can lose a couple pounds of pressure for every 10 degrees the air temp comes down. We’re looking at a rough 20-ish-degree difference between our current overnight low’s and the start of the freezing event.
Afternoon temps could match this, if not plummet even more.
Make sure you take some time to verify you haven’t picked up any loose debris that jammed into your tires. What starts as a slow leak will become a fully flat tire in just 12 hours because of the density and pressure changes we see when the air switches from hot to cold so rapidly.
Now, I’m not saying go out and spend $100 or $200 on batteries or spare electrical parts but keep in mind, if it’s been a hot minute (no pun intended) since you’ve done maintenance on things like your car battery, starter, alternator or anything else tethered to the ignition system of your vehicle, you might wake up to the classic click and beeping of a dud.
If you’re into cars like me, sometimes we don’t run antifreeze in our radiators. You may do a distilled water mix or full distilled water solution if you’re running a high horsepower motor.
For our northern counties, we will be under a hard freeze for a good length of Friday morning, enough to make water exposed freeze up. Make sure you don’t have any nagging radiator coolant leaks that will allow freezing air to get into the system. That would also result in a bad day.
Double check your windshield washer fluid as well.
To consolidate all this vehicular mumbo-jumbo, see below for a quick checklist you can go over at home or even at the office to make sure you’re geared up properly. Tell a friend, a coworker and a loved one just to be on the safe side!
- Check tires for debris, nails, screws, anything that may have caused a leak
- Top off tires before driving
- Crank your cars multiple times and ensure the electrical system keeps some juice in it
- Verify your heaters are working ok
- Look over your engine bay for coolant leaks
- Top off your anti-freeze
- Check your windshield wiper fluid
- Pack jumper cables
- Carry a fix-a-flat or tire plug kit
- Know a way to get to a gas station quickly if need be, if you do end up with a flat
- Fill your spare tire, make sure you’ve got what you need to do a quick install if it comes down to it.
You won’t only want to do these things for Friday. Next week for the first couple days starting on Martin Luther King Day, we’ll be right back into freezing and potentially hard freeze conditions.
Please get these checklists started!