As summer ends, it's time to start thinking about the misery of winter. You never know when a SHTF situation may take place and you're stuck in the cold without many supplies. If you want to survive a snowstorm when your power goes out, you need to prepare for the following:

Staying Warm
Obviously, heat is the big issue here. Doesn’t matter what kind of supplies you have at home if you freeze to death. There are a few things you can do to help keep you warm when it’s freezing outside and you lose power.

Fire
If you have a fireplace and some wood stored inside then you’re pretty much got your problems licked. All you have to do is make sure you can start the fire and keep it going. Not too difficult. Just make sure that you have a couple of fire extinguishers in case something happens, because having your house burn down during a blizzard would really suck.

If you can’t have heat directly in your home for whatever reason, one thing you can do is build a fire outside (provided you can get enough windbreak for it) and heat up some non-river stones in it. River stones can contain tiny pockets of water that can explode when heated. Then when you need to heat up your area around your bed or where you’re sitting, bring in some rocks and put them on something that can handle the heat and they’ll be like a little furnace. If you keep rotating stones like this you can stay pretty comfortable.

Clothing
Make sure you have layers of clothes that you can put on. Polypro moisture wicking thermal underwear like we use in the military is a great base layer because it pulls sweat from your body.

A fleece wool cap is really good for this kind of thing and is what I use when I’m deployed or for hanging out with my neighbors at night in the wintertime. Don’t forget some kind of warm gloves.

Have a couple of blankets too that you can wrap around your shoulders, especially to warm you back up if you have to go outside at any point to shovel snow off the roof or whatever.

Insulating your home
I’m not talking here about the stuff in your walls. If there’s a bad winter storm coming, you should have some plastic wrap and tape ready to cover the inside of your windows to help keep the heat in and the cold out. Put it on the walls and leave an air gap between it and the plastic so you have that cushion of non-moving air. This will keep drafts from coming in there as well.

Get some of your old towels and put them in the space under your doors to keep that draft out. Try to use only one door to go in and out of.

If you can, try to limit the rooms you need to heat up. Close and seal any doors to any parts of the house that you don’t really need to be in so that heat stays where you need it. If you don’t have a door that you can close and lay a towel down to do that, then use the plastic method. Candles/oil lamps

Candles/Oil Lamps
Candles and lamps are great for situations like this. If you’re in a small room, especially with a few people, some candles will be enough to also keep you pretty warm. Probably the best option here is to just get a couple of 100 hour candles that you can keep in each room. They’ll burn for a few days each and really aren’t very expensive. If you’re stuck without anything and have some olive oil and something to wick it with and are a little handy with DIY projects, you can also make your own oil lamps.

Food
If you get hit by a storm that lasts for several days, you’re going to need food already at home. Heading out during the storm to get food isn’t a good idea, and you need to get this well in advance of even hearing about a storm though anyway because grocery stores have a tendency to be emptied out prior to big storms hitting. Also, delivery trucks can’t always make it to restock shelves until after it’s over. Obviously, the answer here is to have food available at home. If you’re not into canning your own, the next best thing is to just buy emergency food and keep it stored.

Remember to stay calm, and have a plan! Think of clever ways to pass the time to avoid going stir crazy. Don't think about The Shining, for example. For more information on what to do to survive a blizzard, visit Graywolf Survival.