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Surviving a Polar Vortex in an RV
Deep Freeze in Florida
We were in Ohio with family for the months of October and November this year. Fortunately we had some pretty nice weather while we were there — at least until the middle of November. Then it hit. Freezing temperatures, snow, sleet, and cold winds. We originally intended to try and stay until the end of November in order to be with family for Thanksgiving and arrive in Florida by December 1. We left on Thanksgiving Day.
An RV is not intended to resist super cold temperatures. Ideally, if the outside temperature is going to get below 20 degrees and stay there for a while, you might want to consider something else. You can probably keep your water lines from freezing if the temperature is in the 20’s with heated water hose*, insulation around the pipes*, and/or space heaters*. But colder than that, and they will probably freeze anyway.
Once the cold temperatures hit us in Ohio, the water was freezing every single night even with leaving the water drip, heaters aimed at the pipes, and an electric heated water hose.* The outside water spigot we were pulling from is what froze up. It didn’t matter that the hose we had connected to it was heated. That’s how cold it was. When we left Ohio, our first stop was in West Virginia. It wasn’t much warmer there and the outside water spigot froze there too. The campgrounds we stayed at even had heat tape wrapped around the outside of all the water spigots.
Fast forward to December in Florida…the weather up until now has been beautiful, but a warning came across my phone last night “Hard Freeze Warning!” In the state of Florida, a hard freeze warning means that the temperature is going to stay below 28 degrees for more than three hours. Looks like we are going to have hard freeze warnings for the next three or four nights. How much you want to bet the price of oranges* and orange juice* goes up. Might want to stock up now.
There is a polar vortex descending on the United States that is bringing bitterly cold arctic air clear down to central Florida. Have you seen the movie “The Day After Tomorrow”* with actor Dennis Quaid about…
