Midwest Arctic Blast

Paging @sheriff who’s last seen walking on beaches in shorts down in San Diego.

Pretty cold in Austin huh @hanera? :smile:

No need to mock others’ misfortune. There’re drought and earthquake here to worry about.

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48 in Austin vs 62 in Cupertino.

Climate change! We reduced CO2 emissions by too much. Get rid of the hybrids and EVs. Gas guzzling SUVs for everyone!

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Yes, that’s indeed due to climate change.

Here’s the other side of the planet:

I am actually from Chicago. The coldest I have ever seen was January 1982, and I remember that because it was the week I moved to California. The weather than was about -15 to -20 below and the wind chill was minus 60.

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Here, it’s sunny and 50 again today. This winter has had by far the most sun of my ~3 winters here. I moved here part-way through the first one. Prior winters, it was exciting if a day was mostly cloudy.
We’ve had a bunch of completely sunny days this winter. It does get colder at night without the cloud cover. There was frost this morning.

That was 5 months with only 3 sunny days. We’ve had that many in the last week.

No!!! :rofl:

I had a low of 9 last month here in Strawberry. Right now most days are 40’s to 50’s, most nights low 30’s.
BTW the utility bill for December was $114 despite those colder temps and uncovered cathedral windows about 16 ft high. All to do with the way the house is oriented (that, plus AZ’s sane utility rates) but I think I talked about that already.

‘Frost quakes’ may rattle Chicago as deadly US weather gets a frigid finale

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/31/weather/winter-weather-thursday-wxc/index.html

“I thought I was crazy! I was up all night because I kept hearing it,” Chastity Clark Baker said on Facebook, according to WGN. “I was scared and thought it was the furnace. I kept walking through the house. I had everyone’s jackets on the table in case we had to run out of here.”

That boom was probably a weather phenomenon known as cryoseism – and dubbed a “frost quake.” It happens when water underground freezes and expands, causing soil and rock to crack.

Chicago, for example, will see a temperature rise of almost 75 degrees – from extreme cold of 20-25 below zero to temps in the low 50s on Monday.

Not to make light of the human suffering there but can’t help but think it’s bullish for our real estate. Techies getting their butts frozen in Midwest and Northeast may want to move out here.

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I thought it funny when my inlaws bought a backup generator a couple of years ago to keep the heat on in Chicago. But with temps like that, the decision could be a lifesaver.

Kinda reminds me of weather fluke that froze kids in ice coming home from school. It was an abnormally warm day, which turned bitterly cold in the afternoon and the kids got stuck in a snowstorm walking home from school. A number of them died.

I can’t remember the name of the incident, but I thought it was in the 1800s.

Frost quakes:

Kinda scary–hope it doesn’t rupture any gas lines.

I had arctic winters on my mind and wore too many layers yesterday. Had to turn on the AC in my car for a little while…

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Chicago Is So Ridiculously Cold That the Railroad Tracks Need to Be on Fire to Keep the Trains Moving

We have always had bad weather. But now we have journalists that come up with new terms to scare people and sell newspapers…Like polar vortex…not news …not even news worthy compared to the little ice age 125 years ago.

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