Brrrrrrrrrrrrr
Think it’s cold in the northern tier of the country right now? Try Alaska. Much of that state is suffering -60 degree temps right now. It’s so cold that airplanes can’t fly and cars won’t start.
Johnson lives in Stevens Village, where residents have endured close to two weeks of temperatures pushing 60 below zero.
The cold has kept planes grounded, Johnson said. Food and fuel aren’t coming in and they’re starting to run low in the village, about 90 miles northwest of Fairbanks.
Johnson, whose home has no heater or running water, said he ventures outside only to get more logs for burning and to fetch water from a community facility. He’s been saving the wood to build a cabin as a second home, but that will have to wait a few years now because the heat takes precedence.
“I’ve never seen it this cold for this long,” he said. “I remember it 70 below one time, but not for a week and a half.”
Meanwhile, across the pond, Britain is bracing for yet another big freeze. The one just past caused ice to form on the seas in several places.
Temperatures plunged so low at the beginning of the week that the sea actually began to freeze as Arctic conditions continued to grip the UK.
Although there was no repeat of the arctic-style minus 12C (10.4F) recorded in parts of the Thames Valley yesterday, parts of South Wales felt temperatures fall to minus 5C (23F).
Scotland and Northern Ireland will warm up fastest, with average temperatures above freezing over the next 24 hours.
But the rest of the UK will have to wait until the weekend before conditions similarly improve.
On Tuesday the sea partially froze on the South Coast of England after temperatures plunged lower than minus 10C (14F).
Here in the lower 48, the Pacific northwest is getting pounded by heavy rain and snow in higher elevations. That storm is expected to head east and pound cities from Chicago to New York. It will not be dropping rain, though. Just lots of snow. It is slated to hit Chicago just in time for the Friday rush hour.
The winter has hardly begun and it has already been a long one.
Environment | Gaius January 8, 2009
By Bleepless, January 8, 2009 @ 9:02 pm
-60 Fahrenheit is so cold that Soviet concentration camp prisoners did not have to work. According to Robert Conquest, the camp authorities determined the temperature by spitting at the ground. If it froze before it hit, no work that day.
By Sam L., January 9, 2009 @ 9:00 am
Global Warming = Hell Freezes Over (minor devils and imps affected worst).
By sam, January 9, 2009 @ 10:38 am
When I moved from Wyoming to Salt Lake, one of the good things was not having to plug the car in at night anymore. It rarely gets below zero in the Salt Lake Valley. On the other hand, there is more snow to shovel, and those damned inversions. Life is full of trade offs.
By martian, January 9, 2009 @ 12:03 pm
Damn that global warming!
By tarpon, January 9, 2009 @ 6:55 pm
This is just getting too funny.
But the serious part is if the current solar trends continue, the cold is going to shorten the growing seasons worldwide, and reduce crop yields. It won’t be so fuuny when this happens.