HotHands Direct Blog

You’ve pulled out the heavy parka, retrieved your insulated boots from the back of the closet, and stashed a pair of thick gloves in your coat pockets. You think you’re ready for winter. But are you really? Legendary college basketball coach Bobby Knight, famous for his obsessively disciplined approach to preparing for each opponent, writes in his book The Power Of Negative Thinking, that, “true preparation means identifying everything that could go wrong and building a plan to handle it before stepping onto the court.” The same could be said about preparing for winter weather. Real readiness requires looking beyond...

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Benjamin Franklin’s words feel especially true when winter hits early and hard as it will this year. The Farmers’ Almanac 2025-2026 Winter Forecast predicts a season of “dramatic swings and widespread wintry weather” and we should “get ready to chill, snow, repeat.” Perhaps most importantly, the forecast calls for an early arrival of winter weather. That means those first frosty mornings could show up weeks before most people are ready. According to the Almanac, “the cold and snow might make an appearance as early as September in some areas of the...

When the temperature drops and the wind kicks up, a routine outdoor shift can become a grueling test of endurance. Cold hands can’t grip tools properly. Frozen fingers fumble with tablets, keys, and zippers. And when your feet go numb, forget standing in one place for more than a few minutes without pain or fatigue creeping in. Layering up helps, but it only goes so far. The cold still finds a way in, especially through your extremities The problem is, the weather doesn’t care about your schedule. There’s no such thing as “off-season” for delivery routes, infrastructure projects, or security...

The more sophisticated modern technology becomes, the more we believe we have tamed nature, and the more secure we feel in our modern cocoon. But nature has a terrible power that will never fully be subdued and can come roaring back at any time. And when it does, our technology, and the false sense of safety it gives us, can be very perilous. Winter, with its sudden storms and precipitous drops in temperature, is one of those times where it’s easy to underestimate the power of nature. The onslaught of snow, hail, and ice can quickly undermine our assumptions and...

As we enjoy the last days of summer, we can’t help but already start thinking about winter. John Steinbeck once wrote, “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” In that case, next summer should be particularly sweet as this coming winter is predicted to be a very cold one. After an unusually warm winter last year in the eastern half of the country, and an unusually snowy winter in the Sierra Nevada, the Farmer’s Almanac is warning this winter will be different for those up east and they should brace themselves...