Lithium will not charge below 32 degrees, and your bank will not say so
Plus the October outage your utility warns you about a day in advance.
Issue #053 Friday, October 9, 2026 Emergency Gear
A lithium power bank left in a cold truck overnight will take a charge and lose it fast. Charge those cells below freezing and the damage is permanent, with no warning light to tell you.
Today’s Skill
Keep the bank above freezing
Lithium cells take damage if you charge them below freezing, and most banks will not warn you. Store power banks and jump packs inside the house, not the garage or the truck. If a bank comes in cold, let it sit two hours at room temperature before you plug it in. Discharging in the cold is fine, but capacity drops hard, so keep it in an inside pocket while it works.
On The Radar
The outage you get warned about
October brings dry offshore wind in the West and the tail of the Atlantic storm season in the East. Both can mean power cut on purpose or for days at a time. Sign up for your utility’s text alerts now, because the warning often lands a day or two ahead. Keep the vehicle above half a tank and charge every bank when a wind advisory posts.
The Drill
Top off every cell, then label it
Today, gather every power bank, headlamp, and jump pack in the house. Charge each one to full. Write the date on a strip of tape and stick it to the case. Any bank that will not reach full, or drains overnight sitting on the shelf, goes in the trash can tonight. Then move the whole pile to a closet inside the heated part of the house.
Ready beats lucky.
- Survival Rise
P.S. Tomorrow: the three gallons of fuel in your shed that will not start anything.