O/T USA & Canada Freeze.

[Robus]

Gas. It runs us about $150 a month in the coldest months, usually only January and February.

[Robus]

Predicting a high of -10F/-23C here in the Chicago area on Monday. If so, it would be our coldest daytime high temperature since January 1994.

I recall we got a nighttime low of about -24F/-31C that same winter and once again in the late 1990s, which were the coldest temperatures I've been in.

Ever noticed below about 10F/-12C or so, when you breath in through your nose you get a tickly feeling in your nostrils as the hairs freeze? It's true.

[TundraWolf]

'greystone16' wrote at 10:38 on 03 Jan:
I wouldn't like your heating bills lads,how do you cope, are you gas /elect/wood/coal or all four?
For me it is a combination of gas and Bowmore single malt

Heating, back East, in Montreal, was mostly fuel oil that ran the furnace and heated the radiators...of course I was living in a house built in 1914. Out here where it rarely gets very cold the heating is electrical with board heaters along the wall boards.

Sorry to hear about your local having received so much damage, Eve, great pictures though.

Very true, Robus, we would get the minimum of one week every Montreal winter when the temperature never rose above -30C (-20F), you could easily get nose bleeds from the drying out of your nasal passages. We still played outside all day back then though.

[TundraWolf]

This picture was taken leading up to the Green Bay - San Francisco game today.



The game was played about two hours north of Robus/Chicago. Since the "Tundra" refers to the northern terrain it seemed both apropos and personal.

[Robus]

Packers fans have a certain image to uphold. And all that pain only to see their team defeated.

Just now -5F/-21C and dropping as I'm getting ready to head off to bed. Predicting a low of -18F/-27C by tomorrow afternoon. Wife's school is canceled tomorrow due to cold, as are the Chicago public schools and most of those around the area.

[TundraWolf]

Robus, in Montreal, about 3-4 weeks a year, the temperature would drop below -5F as the daily high, never cancelled a day unless there was a break-down in the heating system. Is it that the schools in the Chicago area are not sufficiently insulated or is there a worry about the children not being able to walk to school (insufficient winter garb)?

[Robus]

The latter I imagine. It just doesn't get this cold here very often. People aren't accustomed to it.

-14F/-26C right now, still dropping. Also very windy, which puts the wind chill factor down to -41F/-41C. Frostbite would be a real concern for children walking to school, waiting at bus stops, etc.

[TundraWolf]

A fellow I corresponded with in Tennessee a few years ago told me of the State's schools closing due to cold weather, about +20F. I asked him why and he responded that many of the children were bussed to school from the rural communities and did not have/could not afford clothing that would keep them warm, standing by the roadside waiting for the bus, in that weather.

[Robus]

I can understand how 20F seems pretty cold if you're not used to it, or dressed for it. As a ****ager I lived mostly in the South. We moved up to Maine for half a year in the middle of winter, January 1980. My first night in Maine my car, a 1968 Renault R10 that was nothing but trouble, gave up the ghost on a rural highway between Brunswick and Lisbon. It was 10F/-12C. My brother and I fully expected they would find our frozen cadavers in the morning.

10F doesn't seem so cold now, does it?

The temperatures we're seeing right now are potentially dangerous, especially with the wind. But there are places where people are used to it, dress for it, take the precautions, and go about their business.

My wife's school closed a second day tomorrow. It has warmed a few degrees. -13F/-25C right now. Should be the same or warmer overnight, back above 0 tomorrow afternoon. Above freezing on Friday.

That will be a sorry mess with all this snow melting. We had about 8 inches altoge

[TundraWolf]

A rather idyllic picture, Robus, of course one can easily forget the cold when observing the unspoiled scene.