Coldest 30 days of the year for bilge and under engine hatches areas

[bubba]

Coldest 30 days of the year for bilge and under engine hatches areas



Over the years I have tracked temps and wind at Powell. The next 30 days represent the coldest 30 day period for hull temps including engine areas with open breather vents.



The lake acts as a hull heater, but with unsealed air vents in the engine room, and during cold snaps with cloud cover and high wind, temps in engine area can drop far below lake temp. This morning the hull was 45 and the engine room was 42, this DT is normal. Before sealing the vents and adding heaters the lowest reading was 19. It has not gone below 35F since heaters were added.



Sealing the vents is easy. If you add a heater use only ignition proof rated heaters, a lightbulb or space heater are bad news. Xtreme is a brand of engine room / bilge heater.



Cracked blocks at the slips are rare but it does happen. A cracked block sounds like a gunshot when it breaks.



The coldest air temp this year was Jan 11 at 509 am at 22F. A few years ago I think the coldest temp of the year on my system was as late as Feb 16.



The highest wind ever recorded on my boat was 74 mph on Sept 14, 2017. The same microburst twisted up Wahweap marina pretty good, Wahweap was a train wreck - took weeks to get it straight again. Two houseboats capsized that day, several smaller boats sank. The attack was instant - everything just fine one minute, and in seconds all hell broke loose. We were on lake, very well anchored and had zero damage minus a few airborne red solo cups. Absolute terror! It was a flash, it was over as fast as it it arrived.

 

[Pegasus]

I think it was that same Sept 14, 2017 storm that broke the APM docks also - it was the annual Lake Powell Challenge fun race and fundraiser weekend and was a mess with no fuel available for a day or so, power out, etc.

Interestingly, on my boat's weather system, the wind only reached 56 mph that day, but as Bubba said when it hit it hit the marina like a wall of wind from zero to bad in an instant.

I just checked my weather system and found the coldest temperature it has recorded since 2011 was 12.9 degrees in January 2019 followed closely by 13.3 in December 2018. This winter has been much warmer than the past few winters. The lowest I've recorded so far was 26.9 on 12/29/19. On January 11, my low temp reading was 27.1 at APM where Bubba's was 22 at Wahweap.

The highest wind reading my system has recorded since 2011 was 61 mph in April 2019. Looking back monthly since 2011, almost every month has a high wind reading above 30 mph; 4-5 months a year have a high reading above 40, and in recent years one or two months have a recorded high +50. My system didn't record a high wind 50 or higher from 2011 through 2016, but from 2017 on, one or two months a year have a high reading +50. And the only 60 plus was last April as mentioned.

Anecdotally, it seems like gusts are getting stronger and generally temps colder in recent years with this year being exceptionally warm.