Cold Is Cold

Having received a bunch of emails in the past few days which have been about the extreme weather we in Minnesota (and a lot of other places in the northern section of the States) have been dealing with, I thought I'd make a few comments about it, here.

Yes. It's [expletive deleted]-ing cold in Minneapolis right now. We're in the middle of about 80 hours of below-zero temps, with high hopes that we'll be above zero by Friday afternoon. 

Yes. Even though it's this cold, we still got snow, yesterday. Basically, if there's moisture in the atmosphere, it can snow no matter what the temperature is. The major difference is that the colder it is, the smaller, drier and fluffier (and more prone to drifting) the snow flakes will be. So we got snow yesterday which drifted all over and filled in the sidewalks I had cleared out over the weekend.

No. We don't all stay in and hibernate when it's like this. Christopher has still been getting up and leaving home in the very early morning (when the temp on Tuesday was -14 degrees), and I went out and did the grocery shopping today before taking the time to clear the sidewalks. One of the major things you learn in this part of the country is that you need to dress for the weather and not worry about being cute. Hat hair (or earmuff hair) reigns supreme this time of year. 

No. It doesn't stay this cold all year. In fact, it seldom actually gets as cold as it is this week. The "average" high this time of year is supposed to be in the low 20s ABOVE zero (or between 25 and 40 degrees warmer than we've got at the moment). But more importantly, we'll have spring in March and be back up into the 90s in July and August. Living here, you learn to adapt quickly. Heck. You'll probably see light jackets when we get to 20 or 30 this weekend!

Yes. I'm looking forward to it being gone.

Yes. I'd prefer it to be warmer.

No. I'm not moving anywhere just because of a cold snap. Planning a vacation for next January, though? Maybe.