I woke up this morning to a temperature of 2 degrees, and a windchill of 31 below zero. Nothing like a cold north wind sucking the very air from your lungs as you walk across the frozen tundra of the company parking lot to remind you that you are alive.
Now if we would just get some decent snow…
Tell me about it. I left work at 9:30 last night only to encounter that lovely wind chill. Actually, it wasn’t that bad til someone TOLD me what the temperature was.
Someone please remind me that I CHOSE to live in Minnesota :eek:
Ok you chose to live in Minnesota.
Sunday at two in the afternoon it was +2 C 36F yesterday at two in the afternoon it was -21C -6F. Now that is a shock…
Keith
Ah, there’s nothing quite like waking up at 7:30 in the morning, travelling through 2 feet of snow up Bascom Hill with a negative wind chill whipping straight off the lake and right down your back. Then, an hour later, you’re doing it in reverse. You think it’s easier because you’re travelling downhill this time. But what you have constantly on your mind, despite the fact that you’ve never seen it happen, is that one slip on the ice below and you’re tumbling out of control down 100 meters and flipping straight into traffic.
Ah…Wisconsin. Land of the insane.
Here in central WI, the windows in my home office had a thin coating of ice on the inside. (To be fair, the thickest ice was on the window from which Mr. Scarlett just got around to removing the air conditioner this past weekend, and he hasn’t dug out the storm window yet. Grr. Lucky that my office is the warmest room in the house, and I also have an electric space heater. And a puppy to warm (or alternately, lick) my toes.
And to top it off, I just noticed that I spelled Wisconsin wrong in the thread title. I’ll blame it on the cold. Yeah, that’s it…
Wisconsin would be much more livible is they ever got 2 feet of snow. I remember Bascom Hill with the November - March permanent 2" of snow cover, the better to whip up and find every exposed centimeter of skin. The only times I recall 2 feet of snow were the permanent ice blocks on the side of the road that turned black from exhaust and became so hard you could cut granite with them. A car running into one of these “snow banks” may just as well have run into the HC White Library. Some of these things were so dense they wouldn’t melt until June.
Ah, Colorado, where it snows 2 feet at a time and you can play golf a week later.
One thing about Wisconsin winters, though, they make you appreciate every second of summer.
Yep, I hear ya! Good ol’ snot-freezin’ weather today. It’s supposed to get even worse tonight before warming up to a balmy 10 tomorrow.
I have to say, that it’s definitely the wind that sucks. On the side of the building where the wind is blocked, it wasn’t that bad, then I turned the corner and faced right into a nice stiff breeze…BRRRRRR!
No, no, no … the wind doesn’t suck. It BLOWS! (Sorry, someone had to say it. :))
Anyway, having recently moved to Arkansas from Kentucky, I’m told that I won’t see much snow here. I’m disappointed. It’s so much fun to drive in the snow – especially in places where most drivers panic and won’t venture out of the driveway if there’s even a flurry of snow.
Ah … the joys of learning to drive in a snowy state.
I hear you on the snow thing, Lamar. The Madison area never seems to get much snow compared to the rest of the state. I grew up in Green Bay and it seemed like we always had a couple feet of snow on the ground every winter. I spent all my childhood winters sledding down Webster Hill. Here in the deep south of WI, it snows a few inches but never really sticks.
I have relatives UpNort in the Rhinelander area, and they get hammered with snow every year. It’s fantastic up there if you like the white stuff. If we get a paltry couple inches down here, they are sure to get five times as much up there.
Look, I moved to Madison to get away from the snow. I LIKE the fact we don’t get any snow that stays. I grew up in Eau Claire, where they used to get snow, and we had a long driveway and no Snowblower. I don’t miss snow at all. I don’t like these -20 temps either. I do remember some -80 nights in Eau Claire though.
Brrrrr. I’ve got my long underwear and hot chocolate today. What happened to global warming? There’s only two seasons in Wisconsin–Winter and road construction.
Anybody here going to the Sun Bowl to see the Badgers?
All right, all right, so the two feet of snow was just for effect (like it needed any). Madison does snow on occasion (though surprisingly infrequently compared to what you’d think). What never stopped was the wind. Sure, sure, you’d have sunny warm pleseant days without wind, but you’d never notice those. It’s the two weeks of continuous negative degree weather (let alone windchill) that you can’t possibly forget.
I don’t mind cold, I really don’t. I live in Kansas now and I seriously laugh at anyone who bitches when the weather drops a few degrees. I can stay outside in a t-shirt in 30 degree weather and I’m fine. But if there’s a wind…grrrrrrr, I want to hunt down Old Man Winter and let rabid dogs attack his privates as he’s strapped down to barbed wire.
Anywho…you’re right. Not much snow. But going to classes in the Winter was like walking the Trail of Tears.
Hey Kvallulf – I went to college in Eau Claire and man do I know what you are talking about. My last two years there I lived way off campus (way down at the end of Water St past Ray’s bar) and the walk to class was a killer in January and February. I think the Chippewa River is the path of least resistance directly from the Arctic, because when that wind whipped across the footbridge and drove those wind chills down to 50 and 60 below zero, I thought I was gonna die.
Hey, you CHOSE to live here. 
Yes, it’s very cold, but you still haven’t heard me complain. I really don’t mind the snow and the cold. The wind is a bit much though.
Heh, thats too far to walk in the cold. Some friends of mine had an Apt just down from the Cam, and that was a cold walk down waterstreet, although, the way back was never chilly. I miss the dollar tap night shuffle.
Heh Heh. You’re right about that. Not only was the walk back never chilly, but often the walk back was never remembered.
When were you there? I graduated in '90. Ah, how I fondly recall pitchers of Augie Dark at the Joynt, Triple Cripple at the Brat, and the Stable Stomper and The Stable Bar (before it was Grand Illusion). If I had all those brain cells back, who knows where I’d be today?
I used to live across from James Madison Park on E Gorham St. I firmly believe this is the coldest spot in the lower 48. After a storm went through, the wind would blow down unabated from Yakutsk, through Alaska, Alberta, Minnesota and Wisconsin and for good measure rage the last few miles across Lake Mendota (just in case it had lost a degree or two in it’s travels), and right into the side of my house. The kindly landlord had generously used two sheets of kleenex as insulation, as well as providing actual single pane windows for protection.
A sheet of paper (and I swear I am not making this up) placed along the north wall would move along the floor for 10 - 15 feet due to the cold air descending and spreading along the floor.
It made it really difficult to get up in the morning for classes.
I was living on Water st from 93 till about 95, when I moved here to Madison.
That just reminded me, Water St. must be the most remembered street in Eau Claire. I knew a guy from Kentucky who knew about Water St. I also met a few people on EQ and Ultima Online whom also knew of Water Street, and which bars has what on special for every week night.