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Your heating bills may leave you ‘speechless’ after Arctic blast
When Tracie Klossner opened up her utility bill this month, she immediately walked over to her thermostat and turned the temperature down by a few degrees.
A resident of the Rochester, New York, area, Klossner is no stranger to harsh winters. But the recent stretch of consecutive days of frigid temperatures that hardly cracked the 20s and got down to negative degrees was longer than Klossner, 54, is used to. It shows in her bill for the month ending on Feb. 2, which clocked in at over $720 for her 2,600-square-foot single-family home.
“I was just utterly speechless,” said Klossner, a purchasing manager for a small manufacturing company.
As millions of Americans reel from what forecasters said was the coldest invasion of Arctic air of the winter season, now comes the sticker shock of high utility bills after heat ran nearly nonstop to combat the freeze, although experts say the causes of those big bills are often more complex than just cold weather.
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Multiple rounds of Arctic air spread through much of the eastern half of the country in recent weeks. A fierce and deadly winter storm brought snow, ice and cold the weekend of Jan. 24 across the Midwest, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Then, the weekend of Feb. 7, the coldest winter blast yet plunged temperatures in the Northeast to the single digits or below 0, with wind chills recorded as low as minus 30 degrees due to extreme gusts.
The prolonged below-freezing temperatures prevented the snow pack from melting for an extended time, reflecting sunlight and limiting natural warming, keeping it colder and the energy demand higher, AccuWeather reported.
“Furnaces and heat pumps have been running nearly nonstop to keep homes, apartments, and businesses warm amid this bitter cold,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter said. “This relentless cold has compounded the affordability challenges many people have been struggling with this winter.”
The average heating demand in regions that dealt with the Arctic blasts was estimated to be between 115% to 150% above normal, according to an analysis by AccuWeather. Heating costs can vary widely depending on the type of heating source used and location. Electricity is the most expensive heating source during this winter season, AccuWeather reported.
More than half of Americans are likely to see high heat costs due to the Arctic cold, Porter said.
About 30% to 40% of homes in New England rely on home heating oil, which involves filling up a tank that can last awhile. The sticker shock may not be as high for those homes, because they would have filled up before the season began, AccuWeather reported.
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