NOAA Winter Outlook, Prep Like An Adult

0:02Voice Over You are listening to the Common Sense Practical Prepper, sponsored by Duct Tape, the real duct tape. It fixes everything except that decision. Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America. From border to border, coast to coast, and all ships at sea. Here is your host, Keith.

0:21Keith Hey, all this is Keith with the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast, October the 15th, 2026. And as I was putting this outline together, I read several stories within the last 90 minutes or so of a school shooting out in Oregon. Apparently it was in elementary school. And all we know for sure is the suspect is deceased.

0:43Keith There are victims. There are some deaths that have been reported as well as injuries. Not a lot of solid information, so I'm not going to speculate at all, but thoughts are certainly with the school, the faculty, teachers, parents, victims. I could go on and on about school safety or the lack of school safety here in the United States.

1:05Keith I could do a two-hour podcast about this standing on my head, but that is not the original reason why I was going to record this podcast. In addition, if you do hear some background noise, planes, loud music, people honking their horns, it is a beautiful night here in Santa Virginia, and I have all of the windows open.

1:23Keith So in post, I will try to get rid of as much of the background noise as I can. But if you hear an airplane or somebody honking or some boom boom music going to the neighborhood, it's probably one of my neighbors. So what I want to talk about tonight is NOAA has actually dropped, they actually dropped it yesterday, their official forecast for the month of December, January, and February here in the United States.

1:51Keith So about this time every year it comes out, and the same thing happens. Half the headlines turn it into a disaster, the other half turns into nothing to worry about. And normally what actually happens is somewhere in the middle. So today, let's do what we do here. Let's talk about it like grownups. We put on our big boy pants, what it actually means, what they actually say, and if anything, what we can do about it before the cold really sets in.

2:20Keith First of all, let's be clear about this forecast because that's where most people get tripped up. A seasonal outlook is not a weather forecast. It doesn't tell you that it's going to snow on Christmas Eve. Reliable snow forecasts run about a week out, not three months out. So what NOAA is giving us is just a little bit to kind of tilt the odds when it comes to temperatures, precipitation, leaning above average, below average, or near average across a three-month stretch.

2:55Keith So this is a lot of really basic information. That's it. It's a probability. It is not a promise. And another part that people sometimes miss an entire season can average warmer than normal temperatures. And still you can have one brutal week where the power goes out and you've got a severe ice storm.

3:14Keith The average hides the really bad days. So when you hear mild winter, you're not hearing no snow. When you hear mild winter, you're not hearing no temperatures below freezing. There's a huge difference. So what does this year say? The big driver is El Nino, and apparently it's a pretty strong one. Noah is highly confident that a very strong El Nino is in place for the winter.

3:43Keith When that happens, it shoves the jet stream south and east and tilts the southern half of the United States towards a wetter, stormier winter. Again, for the northern tier of the United States, very broad strokes. The upper Midwest, the Northern Rockies, the Pacific Northwest, up into the Northeast, lends warmer than average.

4:07Keith And the south, from California across the Gulf Coast, up to the southeast and the lower Mid-Atlantic, where I am in Virginia, leans towards a wetter than average winter. Now, for us in Virginia, lower mid-Atlantic signal is the one to watch. For us, it's less about a mountain of snow and more about getting wet.

4:32Keith Wet, heavy rain, and it's nastier cousin, ice and the dreaded wintry mix, the kind of storm that goes to power lines and takes down a limb, and then you're without power. So I want to be fair about their forecast because the folks at NOAA are very careful about this, as we should be listening to it. They said it plainly, even in a historic El Nino, some places won't follow the script.

4:59Keith A seasonal tilt sets the preferred path for storms. It does not tell us every storm when it's coming or how much. So it's basically just a regional picture, and it's not a lock on anything remotely close to a forecast. Now we have a lot of folks that are not listening in the states. Got a lot of folks abroad.

5:20Keith Now, the same El Nino that's steering our winter also has an effect on your seasons and your forecaster outlook as well. It's just handing out different jobs depending on where you live. So if you're in the EU, the early read is a milder winter with less snow than across most of the continent. Sounds easy, right?

5:44Keith Oh, that's easy. But here's the catch. It's not the same one I just gave you. The forecasters over there are watching the upper atmosphere for a possible shakeup around January that could flip a mild stretch into a sharp cold snap. So mild on average doesn't mean no bad days or no bad weeks. Same rule applies, just a different ocean.

6:10Keith And for my folks down under, you are not heading into winter. You are going into summer. And El Nino basically flips the script for you down there. It's going to lean hot and dry. That means a real heat wave, drought, bushfire season building through your spring and summer. Different hemisphere, different danger, but the same move.

6:32Keith Know what your season is bringing before it gets here. So wherever you are, the lessons are identical. Don't read the headline from someone else's hemisphere and think it's about you. Find your own country, your own weather service, read your own outlook and prep for the season that you are actually walking into.

6:52Keith So don't panic. Everybody does not need to run out and buy a generator because of this latest report from NOAA. So here's my before the cold gets here check. None of it's dramatic, and it is easier to do today when it's mild than it is during the middle of an ice storm. So heat. Know how to stay warm if the power goes out for the day.

7:16Keith If you've got a fireplace or a wood stove, do you have dry wood stacked up near your house? If you lean on space heaters, are they the kind that shut off if someone bumps into it or tips it over? And if your only heat is electric and the power's out, where does the family gather to hold warmth? Do you all go into one room?

7:36Keith Closed off, it's easier to keep warm than the entire house. Water. A hard freeze is the enemy of pipes. You know which ones in your property are the vulnerable ones, the ones that are exposed, the ones against the northern wall, and obviously the ones in your crawl space if you have a crawl space like me.

7:56Keith Know how to shut your water off at the main, meaning at the street, or if you have a main cutoff in your crawl space. Some folks have the main cutoff inside the house, like in a closet, that is much easier and much more convenient to get to than going outside in bad weather or having to crawl underneath your home.

8:18Keith Power. If the lines come down, how do you charge your phone? Keep a light on, run anything that matters. That doesn't mean a whole house generator. A couple of charged battery banks and a good flashlight will get you through the shorter outages just fine. What about your car? What about your vehicle?

8:36Keith Half of winter trouble happens on the road. Keep your tank at least above a half a tank when there's a storm in the forecast. Blanket, flashlight, water, snack. If you slide off into a ditch a couple miles from home, that little kit turns an emergency into an inconvenience. We should all have get home bags in our vehicles.

8:58Keith And the one that doesn't cost a penny. Know who on your street might struggle in a cold snap. Know your neighbors, your older neighbors that might be living alone, the new family that came up from Miami that has maybe not lived in a part of the country that has severe winters. Knock on the door. Hey, you guys got a way to stay warm when the power goes out?

9:22Keith You're also meeting your neighbors, doing a little bit of preparedness talk. That's fine too.

9:28 Now, the list I just gave you is like the universal version. It's the same list that you can pull up on the internet, just very, very generic. But let me tell you about my website. We've talked about it in the last couple of days, BuildYourArk, A-R-K, BuildYourArk.net. We'll also talk about the plan that I put together, a severe winter storm plan through Be Prepared Solutions.

9:56 You can access all the information that I'm about to provide to you through my site, buildyourark.net. You also have coupons for 20% off if you get a subscription. You can access the plans, the categories, all of my content for free. You can also sign up for a seven-day free trial, no questions asked.

10:18 Okay, so I did the plan and I did a very basic one. I could have gotten really deep in the weeds, but for this instance, I wanted to keep it fairly, fairly high level. So with my plan, I actually use my real address. And when I started looking at the plan, it knows my power company, it knows my service area, and it knows that in the last 90 days, there have been almost 2,000 outage events in my general area, not nationwide, but in my coverage area for Virginia Power.

10:58 So that tells me the grid is weak where I live. Trust me, I know that for a fact. In my neighborhood, and I and I'm going to mess up the electrical terms. I'm sure there's some linemen out there that's like, oh, this guy doesn't has no idea what he's talking about. But when my neighborhood goes out, if a tree falls on a line in the middle of my neighborhood, the entire neighborhood goes out.

11:21 There's not, and forgive me for the terminology, there's no stop gap, which means if a tree falls on the power lines behind my house, it doesn't isolate it to like 20 different homes. 616 residents lose their power. Why is it 616? Because I've lost power several times since I've lived here. And when I look on the Virginia Power or Dominion Power website, my little neighborhood area pops up and it's always 616 residents without power.

11:56 So anyway, more than 2,000 in the last 90 days with this plan. It tells me where the nearest fire station is. Now I know that it's Company 11 right up the street, about four-tenths of a mile away. But you would be surprised. I've been driving around my county and rolled up on like a brand new fire station that I didn't even know exist.

12:18 Not all fire stations are on the main road. Some of them set off a little bit and are kind of hidden. I do know how to get to the nearest hospital, but it provides the address and the phone number, several phone numbers in case I need to reach out. And the plan did the water math for me. I went ahead and set it up.

12:40 I set it up for me in the house for, I think I set it up for a week or 10 days. It tells me how much water I need. I need 10 and a half gallons. I try to shoot for two gallons per person per day. And obviously the math on this is a little bit different. If you can store more, more power to you. But that's basically the minimum.

13:03 So with all the different details, that's the difference between a checklist and a plan. A checklist says store water. A plan says store 10 and a half gallons of water because it's just me here for a week and the grid goes down a lot. And so here's a really cool thing that I found out. The whole thing comes back to me as a document that I can keep.

13:29 This plan, this very basic plan, was 54 pages. I could print that out, I can save it as a PDF and dig this. I can print out a wallet card with a QR code on it, literally like the size of your driver's license. So I can put that in my wallet or in my go bag, in my get home bag, what have you. And all I need to do is scan the QR code and it brings up the entire plan.

13:59 So it is definitely portable, and your entire plan is the size of a QR code. You could take that card and put it on your fridge. You can print out 54 pages and put it in a binder if you want to, but how cool is it to have the severe winter plan on a little wallet card printed, laminated, and stuck on the fridge with a magnet.

14:23 And then right next to it is the summer storm plan or the internet went down plan or the hurricane, earthquake, what EMP, zombie apocalypse. I don't think they have that one. But if they did, I would print out the zombie apocalypse plan on the QR code and stick it on the fridge. Everybody knows where they are.

14:44 Easy to access. It's right there, and you know what you're getting. So I am going to look at the plan real quick and let's go ahead and run through just a few parts of it. Again, we could talk about this for hours. So there is the executive summary, just very basic. My address, the date, the time, a one-week plan for one person severe winter storm.

15:12 Talks about the foundations, and I'll move forward to instructions. How to use the plan. Click to the next page. It tells me about where I get my water from, Virginia Power, the fire station. In 2018, in my area, Hurricane Florence caused $1.1 million in local property damage and one fatality here in Chesterfield County.

15:42 Preparation. There's different phases. So preparation is phase zero and it has a little checklist. And you go to the checklist, and the first one is unpack and fully charge all rechargeable lanterns and radios using wallpower. I click the little radio button next to it, it puts a little check mark, and that one is moved off of my list.

16:05 Phase zero is when you have all the time in the world to plan. The storm is not around the corner, so you have time. There are several checkboxes in prepare. There are two in the protect category, and there are two in the provide category. So, real quick, protect, check that all first aided medical supplies are stocked and accessible.

16:29 Boink, I'm going to check that one. Store critical documents in a waterproof and fireproof location. Boink. I'm going to click that one. Under provide, stock up shelf stable food items that do not require refrigeration. I'm going to click that one. I definitely got it. All right, I'm just going to keep on moving.

16:48 The golden time frame. This is phase one. Time is now the constraint. The window to act before the storm or outage is starting to close in. I have 11 things I need to check off on. Monitor weather alerts and local emergency notifications for severe weather. Okay. I'm going to click that. Protect. Secure outdoor furniture and loose items to prevent wind damage.

17:12 Makes sense to me. We're going to click that one. Plug in battery banks or solar power stations to top off while the grid is still active. No brainer, but it's right there in black and white. Boink. I hit the little radio button and we're moving on. Phase two, the event is underway. So this is the first three days of this winter storm.

17:34 I've already lost power and I've set this up for about a week. Begin operating from secured supplies. You've stored water, non-perishable food, and backup power as needed. Let's drop down to provide. Continue rationing water and food to preserve your supplies. Makes sense. Use backup lighting and radios conservatively to extend battery life.

17:59 Again, kind of self-explanatory, but at least you see it. And if it was something that slipped your mind, there's your little gentle reminder, there's your little nudge. All right, moving on. Phase three, sustained event. So this is days four through seven. Desperation peaks in the community, but not us, because we're cool and we've got these plans.

18:21 The focus is on invisibility and strict resource management as outside support remains unavailable. Ration water and food carefully to extend the supplies. Carefully use radios for emergency updates, but avoid transmitting unless necessary. Under protect, keep all entry points locked and avoid visible activity near windows or doors.

18:44 Now again, this is back when people are starting to panic. This is a widespread, severe storm. We've lost power. Remember, day four is when people start getting a little squirrely because they are not prepared like you and I. Limit in and out trips to only what is absolutely necessary. Now, this is phase four.

19:11 Beyond the selected duration. But now here is a big paragraph. If the emergency has not resolved past the first week, you have gone dark and stabilized. I'm not going to read the entire thing, but there is a ton of information. So now we're in a position where, oh, I set this up for a week. Now we've moved outside of a week.

19:33 Phase five is the rebuilding, recovery, restoration, and then the plan just keeps going on. So there is a ton of information for this particular plan. So please take advantage of it. Check out the free trial. And again, that's just one plan of dozens. And again, I kept this one surface level. There are articles that are associated, podcasts that are associated with it, a ton of information.

20:02 So back to NOAA. The people who do well in bad weather are not the ones who panicked when the outlook dropped or when the storm forecast comes in 48 hours out. They're the ones who, sometime back in late September or October, filled the tank, found the flashlights, checked on the neighbors, and then mostly forgot about their plan until they needed it.

20:26 So a seasonal outlook is not a reason to be afraid. It's not a reason to run around like a maniac and start prepping. It's basically providing us the gift of lead time. Use it and prepare while the weather is still easy. Take 10 minutes this week, walk your house with that list, find the gaps that are obvious, the dead flashlight, the pipe in the crawl space.

21:04 The pipe you've been meaning to wrap under the house, fix that one thing. The next weekend, fix the next. That's how it works. Small steps, baby steps. Again, prepping does not have to be expensive, does not have to be complicated. The winter will do what the winter wants to do. We don't get to vote on our weather.

21:24 We get to vote on whether it catches us ready or it catches us scrambling. All right, folks, remember buildyourark.net. Thanks so much for the emails. I really need to get a mailbag issue out to y'all. Also, I still owe you the last two episodes for Lone Man on the Ridge. Those are completed. Those are ready to be recorded and uploaded.

21:48 All right, folks, practical prep podcast at gmail.com. Please reach out. I will answer every email as soon as I get a chance. All right, folks, please be careful out there. Take care of one another, and until next time.

22:02Keith You've been listening to the Common Sense Practical Prepper. Subscribe, like, drop a review over and out.