Friday, February 01, 2008

How Quickly We Forget...

So the Northwest has had an active meteorological week, with snow, sleet, rain, wind, hail and more and lots of schools and roads being closed. The damp chill pervades everywhere and leaves us longing for open fireplaces, warm blankets, and steaming mugs of hot chocolate -- or, at the very least, has us lunging for the thermostat.

However whenever the whining gets too much or we start to feel too sorry for ourselves we stop and remind ourselves of where we just moved from. That's right: the frozen tundra of Minnesota. From this week's Star Tribune:

The bitter cold and dangerously low windchills between minus 35 and minus 50 degrees this morning caused scores of schools across Minnesota to call off school or start late. Windchill readings will remain in the teens and 20s below zero this afternoon across the Twin Cities. Even with the improvement in the windchill, exposed skin in today's conditions can still freeze in five to 10 minutes, the National Weather Service said.

Um. Yeah. Right....... what were we complaining about again??

Sorry to run, but I'm off to go for a walk in our envigorating cool wet weather and give thanks for living in Oregon again.

Becca

On the other hand, I'm not quite him:

With windchills well below zero, a Danish man who is known as only as Wimhof walked along the Universityof Minnesota campus on Wednesday while an ABC News crew shot film of him. The network brought the man, who says he’s impervious to cold, to the Twin Cities. (photo Elizabeth Flores)

3 comments:

Vagablonde Bombchelle said...

There is this insane woman in my neighborhood who runs every morning no matter what the weather. I wanted to hit her with my car Tuesday and Wednesday just to knock some sense into her. She's wrapped from head to toe but leaves her eyes exposed. Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of living in Minnesota during the winter knows that eyeballs can freeze!

But unlike Oregon, it's definitely a dry cold here in Minneapolis ;-)

SethG said...

And it's not that cold _every_ day. Sure, it was -20 for a bit there this week, but it was 42 last Saturday and it's 24 right now.

Which I greatly prefer to sleet, rain or hail.

Well, we miss you, even if you don't miss us!
sg

BD said...

Chelle-

I consider myself borderline crazy with my running and I NEVER ran outside during the winter. I surprised the lady decided to do it since you're still looking at having your body be exposed to hypothermia within 5-10 minutes! Crazy!

Seth-

We miss you guys, just not the weather. I like being able to spend more than 5 minutes outside a day, even if I don't always do so.