Wednesday, February 26, 2014

The Never Ending Deep Freeze

This is the winter of hibernation.  Pretty much all of December, January, and so far in February, we have had below zero temps.   Night after night after night the low is well below zero (sometimes as low as minus 30), and even our day time temps are often still below zero.   We're a hardy bunch of folks up here in the cold north country, but even by Minnesota standards this is a very cold winter.   This cold winter is being blamed on the Polar Vortex.   Hey, Polar Vortex, go back where you came from! 
Take a look at our 5 day forecast:

Tomorrow

Feb 27

Friday

Feb 28

Saturday

Mar 1

Sunday

Mar 2

Monday

Mar 3
Partly CloudyPartly CloudyMostly CloudyMostly CloudyMostly CloudyMostly CloudyMostly CloudyMostly CloudyMostly CloudyMostly Cloudy
Hi:
-4°
Lo:
-18°
Hi:
Lo:
-21°
Hi:
-7°
Lo:
-21°
Hi:
Lo:
-15°
Hi:
Lo:
-11°
As you can see, it looks pretty depressing.   Look at those nightly lows.  And note that these are air temps, NOT wind chills!  And the 10 day forecast isn't much better, just more of the same.  Every day on TV I hear about the "bitter cold" in other areas, where the temps will be in the upper 20's.   At this point we would welcome such a "bitter cold"!
     Everyone around here is going broke trying to keep the house warm.  Those who heat with oil or gas or propane or electric talk about monthly bills of $600 or more.  And people who heat with wood, like we do, are all just about out of wood.   We all thought we had a big enough stack of wood for the winter, but now most folks are down to just a very small pile of firewood. 
     In the book "How to Talk Minnesotan", there's a chapter devoted to how us Minnesotans can gab for at least 30 minutes about the weather.   And that's just what we're all doing!   In just about every cafe, or coffee shop, and at every kitchen table, we're talking about the cold.   So now it is almost March - supposed to be getting near spring.  In fact, on the 9th we're supposed to turn our clocks ahead one hour and "spring forward".   At this point we're thinking spring will arrive by July!  And then we'll have that 1 day of "Minnesota summer" - i.e. that one day of bad ice fishing - and then we'll be getting ready for winter again!  Yippee!
     Now, the next time you hear on TV about the bitter cold in other parts of the country and how they are suffering, please think of us freezing up here.   They never talk about us.   I guess it's just a given that Minnesota is cold.   No news story there.  One of these days it's bound to warm up!  Maybe..............














1 comment:

Sarah Snook said...

You're right! I think people just already know that any place up North is cold. Plus Antarctica in the South.