Re: Effects of Cold Front on Internet Infrastructure - U.S. Midwest

[Tom Beecher <beecher () beecher cc>]

To be fair, reporting the the wind chill factor is very meaningful for
health and safety reasons almost everywhere so proper warning is given
about people spending time outside. Minneapolis, and the bigger Canadian
cities have those inside walkways and pedestrian pathways, but they're not
that common elsewhere. I don't think Chicago does for example, and we don't
have that here in Buffalo. Contrary to the rumors, 0F with -40F wind chills
are NOT very common around here.

People need to be warned to take this weather seriously. You might be used
to it, but not everyone in a native that can say that.

To the 'infrastructure' question, I think the biggest concerns would be
power related. Although we have a DC in Buffalo that is cooled on ambient
outside air that has the opposite problem ; it's TOO cold at the moment, so
we are cycling most of the hot server exhaust back into the computer rooms
to maintain temperatures.

On Wed, Jan 30, 2019 at 11:52 AM Mel Beckman <mel () beckman org> wrote:

> Being a Minnesota native, I can tell you that while it is indeed cold,
> this is nothing new i the Great White North :)  I am amaze a how
> consistently the media overplays the severity of Midwest cold weather as
> some kind of unique phenomenon. They amplify this by reporting the
> wind-chill factor, which is the “what it feels like” equivalent in a cold
> and windy environment. But equipment feels nothing, so windchill is
> irrelevant.
>
> For example, Minneapolis is -20F, but the news media instead reports “-60F
> wind chill”, which, while dramatic, is not meaningful for most purposes. I
> grew up in Minnesota with -30F and lower quite common, and we walked to
> school in those temperatures. You just have to dress well. Minneapolis is
> paved with tunnels and heated skyways to eliminate most outdoor walking
> downtown.
>
> As far as networks go, none of the ISPs I know of do anything different
> than anywhere else in the country. Everyone has backup power. It’s already
> common practice everywhere to exploit cooler winter ambient temperatures to
> reduce HVAC requirements, so that’s not new either. But it gets as hot in
> the Midwest in our summer as it is in SA for you now, so everyone must
> still build out HVAC capacity to cover the hottest days.
>
>  -mel beckman
>
> On Jan 30, 2019, at 8:40 AM, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka () seacom mu> wrote:
>
> For anyone running IP networks in the Midwest, are you having to do
> anything special to keep your networks up?
>
> For the data centres, is this cold front a chance to reduce air
> conditioning costs, or is it actually straining the infrastructure?
>
> I'm curious, from a +27-degree C summer's day here in Johannesburg.
>
> Mark.