Freeze check: will tonight be hard on your pipes?

Enter tonight's forecast low and where your pipes run. Get the steps for tonight, in order, each linked to the page that says why.

1 min read

Your answers

The next seven nights

Your browser asks the National Weather Service for your forecast; this site never sees where you are.

Tonight's forecast low28°F

4 degrees at or under freezing. Check your forecast at weather.gov.

Where do your pipes run? Pick all that fit.

Two more

A freezing night, and your pipes are exposed

Shut off and drain the outdoor faucetsClose the valve inside the house that feeds each outdoor faucet, then open the faucet outside to drain it. That empties the short run of pipe just inside the wall, the part most likely to freeze.Source
Keep the heat at 55 degrees or higherEven at night, and even when nobody is home. Illinois Extension sets the floor at 55.Source
Open the cabinet doors under sinks on outside wallsIt lets the room's heat reach pipes that have no insulation of their own.Source
Let a faucet trickle at nightHot and cold, from a faucet on an outside wall.Source
Find the main water shutoff, and show everyoneIf a pipe bursts, closing the main valve is what stops the damage. Make sure everyone in the house knows where it is and how to turn it.Source

A checklist sorted by your answers, not a prediction. Steps you check here are checked on the full checklist too.

The seven-night outlook

Use my location asks your browser where you are, rounds it to about a kilometer, and asks the National Weather Service for the forecast there. The request goes from your browser straight to weather.gov; this site never sees where you are. Every night at or under 32 degrees is marked, and tapping a night sets the thermometer to its low. The service covers the United States only.

How it decides

Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, so a forecast low at or under 32 gets the cold night steps from Illinois Extension: keep the heat at 55 or higher, open the cabinets under sinks on outside walls, and let a faucet on an outside wall trickle. Pipes along outside walls and in unheated spaces freeze first, which is why those answers add steps.

What it does not do

It does not predict whether a pipe will freeze. That depends on wind, insulation, how long the cold lasts and things no form can ask. It sorts the same cited steps by your answers, so the ones that matter tonight come first. When a forecast sits near the line, do the steps anyway; they cost a little water and a little heat.

If a pipe freezes anyway

No water from a faucet on a cold morning can mean a frozen pipe. See what to do about a frozen or burst pipe: find the shutoff first, and never thaw a pipe with an open flame.

Sources

University of Illinois Extension: Cold weather, frozen pipes? Extension gives you all you need to know extension.illinois.edu
National Weather Service: Prepare for cold weather weather.gov
National Weather Service: API web service (the forecast the freeze outlook reads) weather.gov

Drafted on October 26, 2026 with a language model from the pages listed above, each opened that day, and sampled by the editor after publication. Every figure is computed by the same code the tools run, and a test fails the build if one stops matching.

Found an error? See Corrections.