Orlando parks getting ready for cold temps

Woke up to 78 degrees this morning. A bit chilly from the 85 I have been enjoying. A bit windy today too but I will survive.

You guys explained how a heat pump heats my home better than the guy who installed it, or even Google. Thanks.

I recently built a small roof over my heat pump because last winter, ice covered the coils and the "emergency heat" ran continuously until it thawed. My electric bill last winter was astronomical. This year's recent storm was a test to see if the roof was going to help, and it did. The coils are nice and dry, even though there is a layer of ice three inches thick on the patio around the unit. My electric bill is staying low. I love my heat pump.

I'm sure the emergency heat has kicked on frequently because of the low temperatures, but it seems to be working as intended.

Yes, what Rob said about the strips. My blower does appear to have those, but they're insanely inefficient and ineffective.

Here's how my upstairs unit ran last night while it was 28 below. It's two stage, so the darker orange is the second stage ("high," if you will). Below is the power usage. All things considered, pretty efficient. Subtract 42 kWh generated by solar.

Yeah the heat pump moves heat, while the emergency elements create heat, and creating is much more expensive than moving. Today's heat pumps are amazingly effective at extracting heat from sub-zero temps. When we looked at pool heaters it's the same.. a heat pump is much cheaper to run than a gas heater (but the gas heater will heat the pool more quickly).

Can confirm that almost every outdoor ride at Epic was closed on Saturday night because of the wind, including Yoshi and the carousel for a short period of time. Luckily Monsters Unchained, Mario Kart, and Harry Potter were open for us.

Almost every single outdoor attraction was closed on Sunday morning through at least noon. All rides eventually opened. Luckily we knew about the cold in advance and am used to the Chicago winters, so it wasn't that big of a deal for us. But, the lack of attractions at Epic became glaringly obvious Sunday morning with only four rides open.

I just returned from a weekend Bahamas cruise yesterday - It was freezing. We ended up on a "cruise to nowhere" as both of our stops were cancelled due to winds. Other than our arrival day into Fort Lauderdale last Thursday, we didn't crack 60F once. (with gale force winds). Again, this is south Florida.

When we returned from the cruise at 8am Monday, Fort Lauderdale was 39F. We drove to Key West that day and while a beautiful sunny day, KW barely got into the high 50's with gusty winds. Wild!

Not the best cruise or vacation, obviously.

Apropos of nothing, it was temperatures like these that were part of the reason for Challenger blowing up, forty years ago almost to the day.

Yeah, they delayed the Artemis wet dress because of the cold. You know, the thing made from used Shuttle parts.

My kid was looking at wait times on Sunday, and while Dinosaur had two-hour waits for its last day, everything else was lighter, and a lot of outdoor stuff was closed part of the day.

Speaking of Dinosaur, I thought this was cool

https://www.reddit.com/r/Wa...ly_showed/

Hanging n' Banging:

Not the best cruise or vacation, obviously.

Still better than being at work.

Richard Bannister:

temperatures like these that were part of the reason for Challenger blowing up

2nd grade, remember it like it was yesterday. Our teacher had entered the contest to be on the shuttle, and like a lot of 7 year olds I was convinced I wanted to be an astronaut. I became slightly obsessed with the investigation and must have done at least a dozen assignments of various kinds on the topic through junior high days. Anyone got a spare O-Ring?

What really caught my eye was this report. Some former NASA engineers are more than a little concerned that they are using outdated inferior technology (as in, from the 1960's) for the heat shield, and it showed quite a bit of damage on the unmanned flight.

Recent wet dress rehearsal was stopped due to hydrogen leaks. They had leaks for Artemis I three years ago.

https://www.space.com/space...till-happe

I'll be honest, I don't want to watch any of this live, if they do ever get it off the ground. I was in grade 7, and I too became a little obsessed. I had the flight manual and control diagrams and all kinds of stuff. As an adult though it's more grim, and I don't like to think about it.

Alternate History Hub.

What if they chose Big Bird instead of Christa McAuliffe as originally considered?