It is -9 right now, when I went out to start the car last night it was -14, so I do not think it got all that cold last night.
The newspaper lists record lows from the past and it reminded me of 1983 when we had continuous lows in the twenties with drops to -30s and -40s some days for several weeks.
That was a nippy winter.
When I went to college at Bemidji, Mn for a couple of years forty below was not rare and I walked a quarter mile to a grocery store one evening when it hit -50, that is a slightly different world.
I had a genuine USAF arctic parka, which I still use, that kept me warm but I tried the old freezing spit trick thing, and they are correct it does freeze.
Now Bemidji is one hundred some miles north of here but it is amazing how much difference in uncommon lows such a small difference can make but at the same time I have seen forty below where I am sitting now multiple times in the past twenty years yet my other house which is only fifty miles south of here, I do not ever remember seeing even thirty below.
Only four days to the start of winter, Merry Christmas.
