Colder Still

December 13, 2010

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Last week, my column discussed the cold of the Midwest. I waxed poetic about the joys of winter and how much good comes from a cold spell of weather. Tonight, as I see the forecast for overnight and tomorrow, the poet in me is curling up and pretending to go to the tropics. We expect temperatures to drop to negative eleven before dawn with wind chill of negative thirty. I do believe that this is, in fact, cold enough.

The rural schools are already closing for tomorrow. The reasons range from broken water mains, insufficient heating, and wind chill dangers waiting for the bus. I am very supportive of such preemptory actions; safety of the children should be very high in the priorities of any school. I only wish I was still in school. I am fortunate to have a garage (unheated but still enclosed) so my start should not be that bad. I remember the days of living in an apartment and waiting for the car to warm up while scraping frost and ice from the windows. The coldest part of my day will be the walk in from the parking lot and the trip home at night.

I watched several football games in the comfort of my home. The games in New York and Pittsburgh were cold rain expecting snow later. The game in Chicago was all snow expecting the frigid cold that we are expecting to follow tonight.

Now all of this weather will pass. In the next week it should warm up enough to snow. The kids will like that, but driving in the frigid cold is much easier than driving in snow. I do enjoy the changes (here is the poet coming out again). This bitter cold will only make the warm up sweeter. The snow will be nice for Christmas. The best course for all of us in the path of winter storms is to remain safe. Unless you are properly prepared, stay in doors. Bad weather always provides a good opportunity to write, read, watch old movies and develop relationships. Even though it will be very cold, I will still enjoy it, and I hope you do, too.

2 Comments (+add yours?)

  1. kosmo
    Dec 13, 2010 @ 09:11:03

    It wasn’t too bad shoveling yesterday. I popped on my wireless headphones and listened to the 10th inning of Ken Burns’ Baseball.

    But when it came time to spread ice melt, my hand nearly froze off. I always take my gloves off to do this, because I like to have more dexterity.

    Reply

  2. Martin Kelly
    Dec 13, 2010 @ 15:21:21

    It was not as cold as expected this morning, positive real temp and a wind chill of only 15 degrees below. It is down right balmy!

    Reply

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