WHEN: January 21, 2011
WHERE: Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada
Question: how do you decide how many R's to use when spelling "brrrrr" (and was that enough)? Do more R's mean more cold? What role do accompanying exclamation points play? I don't know. But I do know that it's cold! Where? How about where not?
Low temperatures today (NOT wind chills)
It's January; mid-January at that. We are at the apex of the coldest time of the year for most areas in the northern hemisphere. And this week has not failed to represent this seasonably cold time of the year. While the past two days have been mild here in Charleston, the past two months have been nothing but unseasonably cool and the forecast appears to be more of the same. Bleh! But I'm not going to sit here and disgust people with my complaints about temps in the 40's and 50's.
As you can see from the map above, the mercury dropped to -46°F in International Falls, MN this morning, breaking the old record by 5 degrees set back in 1954. Surprisingly, the atmospheric temperatures above International Falls, MN were warmer than those above Miami, FL. While this is often the case, I have no idea why. I'm a geographer, not a meteorologist. Another question: if there's a -133°F wind chill at 39,000 feet and your traveling in a jet at 500mph, does the wind chill just give up? "I quit! This is ridiculous!"
Upon checking the weather this morning I came upon this video of two girls throwing boiling water in to the air (at -22°F) in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. While this is not the first time I've seen a video like this, it is a good illustration of the cold that many in North America are experiencing during this most awful time of year.
Temps across North America at 9pm tonight
(I added this map mostly for the reward of the colors)
While -22°F may sound cold (and it is!) temperature always seems to be relative. As you can see in the above video, the girl throwing the water in the air has no hat or gloves on. This seems to be a trend in many of these "throw hazardous-temperature water in to hazardous-temperature air masses" videos that are online. While this may be alarming to some (especially mothers), -22°F may be reasonable for wearing short-sleeves in a town that is centered in the snow-kissed reaches of northern Canada (over 950 miles north of Canada's border with the United States). I believe this video was shot within the past week but today may have been the more appropriate time to produce such a video. The low temperature this morning in Yellowknife was -43°F, with even modest winds (10-15mph) plunging the wind chill into the -70's! How many R's does that require?? The average HIGH temperature in Yellowknife for the past week was -21°F. And to add insult to frostbite, this morning the sun didn't rise until 9:34am and had already set at 4:04pm. But it did warm up to a high of -31°F today, so they're fiiiiiine! Yea, eh?
I grew up in Iowa. Days were short. It got cold. But living in a place like northern Canada has got to be an entirely different lifestyle. How does one cope with 5 hours of sunlight in the winter, 20 hours in the summer, and temperatures that often fall below most thermometer's capabilities?? I know that Yellowknife by no means represents the coldest place on Earth, but whatever it represents makes me thankful I don't live there! If that video wasn't impressive enough, maybe this video of a "tsunami" frozen solid in Antarctica will cool you off a bit.
Now, go outside and quit complaining about those temperatures above zero degrees (I meant that in large part for myself).
Calculate your wind chill here
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