I don't live in St. Louis anymore but I saw a graphic on some of my friend's pages that sums up there. It showed a cop (or security guard) holding one hand up and saying "Sorry folks, St. Louis is closed." They got a lot more snow than we did. We got rain/then freezing rain/sleet THEN finally snow (only a few inches). It's also the coldest temperatures in my life (literally). Right now we are 2 degrees Fahrenheit with an expectation that it will get even colder. I have our fireplace on at full-blast and the heat doesn't seem to be filling up our room much (usually when I do this when it's in the 10s to 20s it's like a bit of a sauna under out heavy comforter.) I just hope Solomon doesn't feel too cold. Just having my arms above the comforter is making me a bit shivery.

Hope you're staying warm, Christina. Below zero F' has happened often around here this fall/winter, but with little snow. Sounds like you might have an air leak somewhere causing the cold air to come into the room. Try putting a towel between your threshold and your front door. If that doesn't work, I'm sure Solomon wouldn't say 'no' (besides the fact that he hasn't reached that age yet) to some skin to skin body heat. Stay warm!

Yikes! And here I think I'm freezing in 50 degrees...

Just as an FYI though, leave a tap running in your house overnight. We had a big snowstorm about a month ago and our pipes froze overnight-- luckily they didn't burst, but it took a little over a day of melting snow to boil water and run it down the pipes to unfreeze them. :p You probably already know to do that though, we were just snow newbies and had no clue.

Stay warm!

I thought you were in SoCal, Mouserocks. Are you in the mountains? I can definitely say it isn't cold or snowy here now--70 degrees, 10% humidity, and Santa Ana winds blowing away what little moisture there is.

For you FOLCS farther east:





And, finally, you know it\'s cold when it inspires fanfic writers.

I live in Minnesota. It was 23 below zero this morning when I went to work. Wind chills were in the thirty below ranges. Nuff said.

Tank (who is getting real tired of the cold this winter and we're only a quarter way in)

Annie, I love those cards.

Tank, ugh! 'nuff said.

Here our low is supposed to be 8 tonight, with wind chills making it feel around 10-15 below. My son's school has already been closed for tomorrow because of the cold. Delaware's public schools sometimes seem to close at the merest rumour that a snow flake might fall, but I don't recall them ever closing before just because it's going to be a bit chilly out.

Not that I'm complaining about having a day off (even if I do need to take a sick day myself to have it, since my college is open).

Joy,
Lynn

Yup, you definitely have me (and most of my extended family) beat.

It reminds me of when my hubby and I went to New Orleans for the Christmas Holiday a week before Christmas) and virtually no one was out. Not even the locals. It was in the upper forties and the locals were complaining about how cold it was. I was thinking at the time, "40s? for the low is cold? They have NO idea." I think the same applies for me.

The people that winter over at the South Pole have a 300 Club. Wait until the outside temp is -100, crank the sauna up to 200. Get in the sauna, get hot, run outside and make a lap around the pole and back inside. Since you are starting in a sauna this is all naked of course.

Originally posted by Annie B.:
Yup. Used to live in the valley, but we moved up to the middle of nowhere to be near no one (family :p ). Although it's certainly been warmer during the day, probably around fifties/sixties. I thought yesterday felt like spring weather, was getting too warm for my jacket. But our nights are still cold. Though obviously not as bad as negative degrees with Tank.

Originally posted by dcarson:
The way you just tacked on the naked thing so matter-of-factly just made me bust up laughing. Now my family is looking at me like I'm a crazy person. (They're not wrong.)

I remember one February it got down to 13 degrees here (yes, I know, not that cold compared to some places, but we Southern Californians didn't know what to do with it). The city persisted in watering plants even in the extreme cold, with, per usual, half the water ending up in the street. People weren't expecting the ice and it created quite a traffic jam as cars slid on it and crashed into each other. The lovely tropical landscaping froze (though most of it eventually recovered). The citrus trees in my yard were damaged, but interestingly enough, the ones with sweet fruit (tangelo, kumquat, grapefruit, and orange) were less badly damaged than those with sour fruit (lemon and lime). Someone told me that the sap of the sweet-fruited trees has more sugar than the sap of the sour-fruited trees, and the sugar helps protect against frost damage.

We haven't had snow that stuck to the ground in this town since 1987. We had about an inch and a half then (it used to be more frequent, judging from old photos and the stories told by people who've been here a long time, but it's a warmer, dryer place now than it was 100 years ago).

My fav pic was the one of the Arch that had a sign thumbtacked/photoshopped on it (it would have been 150 feet tall) that said "Sorry, we're CLOSED".

Officially it got down to -8F. It didn't break the record at the airport, tho. Why? Because the record for January 6th is the ALL TIME RECORD LOW for St Louis, set back in 1884, which was -22F. -8F puts it ranked with the 60th lowest temp of all time along with about 16 other dates. Mind you, it's about 40F below average for the day, so YES, it's FREAKING COLD.

Warmed all the way up to 23F today! Break out the swimwear! We did tie for 9th all-time coldest high yesterday with 2F. Brrrrr

Stay warm, Northern Hemisphere peoples.

PS: Why, yes, I was an atmospheric science major in college. Why do you ask?

Well it was 7 when I put the grandson on the school bus this morning.

Thanks for sharing that story. I love Nightwing!

My kids have recess inside when it's below 20F. I'm glad the school keeps them in, but playing outside in 20 degree weather is still pretty cold. Where I grew up, we only had recess inside when it rained, and that one winter when it got to freezing temperatures when I was a teenager, it froze my mom's jade plant in our front yard, killing most of it. These days, it seems "warm" outside if it's above freezing.

This weekend I spent time in front of the fireplace with the laptop, my knitting and a cup of tea. Cold winter days are the perfect time to do my two favorite things: write and knit.

Of course, this morning I didn't want to take the dog on her usual two mile walk. But she had other ideas and thought I was crazy to insist on coming inside after only walking a quarter mile! You have to love the winter.

Stay warm and safe everyone!

Playing catch-up from after the holiday season, and ironically started reading this thread (as I mentally gear up to face the cold and go get our mail with my daughter). We live in North Dakota--originally from Iowa and moved here a year and a half ago for my husband's job. I thought we had cold winters in Iowa, but this winter has really given me a reality check ! We had the insanely cold temps here that Tank was referring to--and by today we have rebounded up to a balmy -6 degrees currently (hence the gear up to get on all the layers, etc and walk the half block to the communal mail box). It's crazy though...lately have witnessed temperatures that I've only ever read about (before moving here).

Stay warm everyone!
Laura

I used to have a dog who liked to lay in the sunshine. It didn't matter what the temperature was, she wanted to lay in the sun. When it got down to 13 degrees, she still wanted to lay in the sun, despite the grass beneath her being frozen. She would lay out there, shivering and looking miserable, but she wouldn't move until the other dog went out, grabbed her by the ear, and tried to drag her into the house. Even then, she broke away and went to lie in the freezing sunshine again. This dog would also lie in the sun when it was 112 in the shade (and thus warmer in the sun). She'd lay there, panting and miserable, and wouldn't move until her buddy grabbed her by the ear and tried to drag her into the shade. Soon, she'd break away and go lie in the sun again. (Amazingly enough, this dog still made it to the ripe old age of 15.)

It\'s so cold: humor edition from CNN

Some gems:

It's so cold that...

1. Cops yell "thaw!" when chasing bad guys.

2. I had to turn on the air conditioning to warm up the place.

3. My dentures were chattering in their container.

4. Everyone in the bank was wearing a ski mask.

5. You climb inside the refrigerator to stay warm.

6. The sequel to The Day After Tomorrow will now be titled Today.

7. I'm shivering like a mobster in a tax office.

We had a heatwave; how about Mr. Freeze comes to town... except maybe not the Arnold version.

Great Thanks for the laugh, Annie! Helped to warm me up...

Laura

Not to be *that* kind of person, but this popped up on facebook and...



I couldn't resist.

Yesterday - top of 43C
Today - top of 42C
Tomorrow - forecast 44C
Friday - forecast 42C

I have heat to spare. If only I could send you all some!

Corrina.

Pretty warm...of course, it's summer where you are. (It's acting like spring/fall here in southern California. Temperatures are in the 70's and 80's and have been since mid-December, plus it's bone dry.) When summer comes, possibly around February with how wonky the weather has been, it'll be as hot here as where you are.

It's warmed up quite a bit around here (33 degrees --just happy to be out of the negative digits!), but now we are in a blizzard warning till Thursday evening...argh!

Bundling up and vowing not to leave the house for the next 24 hours (at least )

Laura

We just got out of our freezing cycle just recently. We actually had a day or two where it got up to 60! We've gone down since but not too badly and nowhere NEAR those single digits we had. Basically thing here are back to normal.