Stormy weather

[Nick]

Originally Posted by petrw1

10 degrees warmer than yesterday.
NOTE: This is Celsius.

Is that normal at this time of year for you?

[storm5510]

Old man winter has set up shop in my neck of the woods. 15 cm of snow Monday night, then another 1.25 into early this morning. No problem for me. The real issue is 60 km to my south. Freezing rain. 1.5 cm of ice accretion is possible. Those folks will have real problems when falling tree branches begin taking out electrical service lines. Temperatures are below zero on the C scale across the region. It is -5 at my location. This event is to continue until Thursday evening.

[petrw1]

Originally Posted by Nick

Is that normal at this time of year for you?

This is a cold-snap. What the weatherman calls a "Polar Vortex".
We can see -40 a few days a winter.

Normal this time of year is highs of -13; lows of -23.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by petrw1

10 degrees warmer than yesterday.
NOTE: This is Celsius.

This reminds me of listening to The Frozen Logger as a kid, on a record my parents had of a group called "The Weavers."

Hmm, -38 C is near -40, which is the same for Fahrenheit and Celsius. Colder than I've experienced. But Saskatchewan is north of North Dakota, where they say, "Forty below keeps the riff raff out."

[Uncwilly]

Obligatory:

The Cremation of Sam McGee

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

[kriesel]

We're not made for this. Choose well, for yourself and others.
https://www.outsideonline.com/2152131/freezing-death
Decades ago I house-sat while a sister and her husband went skiing further north.
The receipt from the grocery store where I had bought milk that had begun to freeze in the few blocks drive back said it was -37F (-38C) in that town (~43 degree N latitude) and +37F (+3C) in Anchorage Alaska (~61 degree N latitude).
There was news coverage around that time, of a different couple who went skiing with their toddler in a carrier on the dad's back. When they got back indoors a couple hours later, they discovered their child was not napping as they had thought during the skiing; it was dead of hypothermia.
https://www.whattoexpect.com/first-y...m-extreme-cold
Don't count on setting a record. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/620609.stm

[Dr Sardonicus]

I remember someone on the staff at summer camp reciting The Cremation of Sam McGee from memory.

To Build a Fire by Jack London also comes to mind.

John McPhee's book Rising from the Plains featured geologist David Love, who grew up on a ranch in Wyoming. He recalled the following:

His father was with him one cold and blizzarding January day when David's rifle and the rabbits he was carrying slipped from his hands and fell to the snow. David picked up the gun and soon dropped it again. "It was a cardinal sin to drop a rifle," he says. "Snow and ice in the gun barrel could cause the gun to blow up when it was fired." Like holding on to a saddle horn, it was something you just did not do. It would not have crossed his father's mind that David was being careless. In sharp tones, his father said, "Laddie, leave the rabbits and rifle and run for home. Run!" He knew hypothermia when he saw it, no matter that it lacked a name.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

John McPhee's book Rising from the Plains featured geologist David Love, who grew up on a ranch in Wyoming. He recalled the following:

A friend was a member of the Canadian Royal Air Force many years ago. He was in Winterpeg and some member of the brass was flying in. He and a few others were required to go out and wait on the flight line at parade rest (with their hands on the muzzle of their weapons) for something in the neighbor of an hour or more for the brass to show up. It was bitterly cold and he had to wait for several minutes, after getting inside, for his hand to warm up enough, so he could release the gun. He does not have happy thoughts about the officer that sent them out there to wait.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

He does not have happy thoughts about the officer that sent them out there to wait.

Different context, but...

As a young Geek growing up dealing with winters in the interior of BC, CA I used to turn on the (electric) furnace as far as it would go and then go and wrap myself in a blanket directly over a radiator, and read and/or code.

My father hated the cold. How I first manifested where I did I don't think either of us will ever fully understand. (Perhaps it had something to do with the basic Human need of keeping warm...)

[petrw1]

I might have to put on long pants and a sweater today

[LaurV]

Just two deg lower and you wouldn't have to care anymore if it is Celsius or Fahrenheit...