Baby, it's cold outside

So, we’re finally in winter conditions in Canada. You may ask yourself, ‘haven’t they had snow for months?’ Well, we have but we haven’t had our freeze, until this weekend. Hopefully this is it now, we shall see. The news today reads:

Bone-chilling temperatures were recorded across the region Tuesday morning ranging from –44 C at the Edmonton International Airport to –33 C in the city centre. The high winds experienced Monday abated overnight, but were still blowing at about 15 km/h Tuesday, making it feel another 10 degrees colder.

Here’s the science bit: -40 is the same in Celsius and Fahrenheit and it’s not a good place to be. At -40 it takes about 25 minutes for your skin to freeze if you’re out in it, at -50 it happens in minutes. You can’t let your petrol tank get below half full or the pipes are likely to freeze. Are you cold yet? If you leave a glass of water out it will freeze in 12 minutes :o) My friends’ outdoor thermometer broke, it was that cold, and they’ve had it for years!

Yesterday I didn’t go into work; with blizzard conditions that’s just not funny when it’s also so cold. Thank goodness for the internet. I remember lots of snow last year, but not snow at such a low temperature. Roh went in to work in the morning and then came home again, the roads were just crazy. Last night when I tried to open the front door the handle had frozen, poor Tasha was delivering my laptop and had to freeze a little longer. It eventually opened, to her tale of getting stuck on our road. Hmmm.

Living in a building site and facing the wrong way for the wind, means all the snow is blowing in and stopping by our front door, and no big snow scrapers are coming along to push it out the way. It’s a road less well used so it’s not even been compacted in the majority of places. We therefore have a rally drive to get out of our house in the mornings; the photo doesn’t really do it justice. I was really happy that my car has a ‘Sport’ option on it when leaving this morning. I took the ‘lamp’ picture after I’d escaped.

So, today I braved it into work – on the rule that I will only drive in daylight hours and with no snow. At one point I’m on the Anthony Henday (ring road) and can see 20 yards in front of me and the thermometer in the car is registering -40 (don’t forget to subtract another 10 for wind-chill). The road was fairly clear of ice, which was good as connecting roads are like driving on un-tarmac’d back lanes. Very rutted. The amazing this about the snow, scary as it is, it’s also very beautiful. Which, in itself, can be distracting. I also have a new toy in my car – a remote car starter – which I love. Saves me running outside to warm up the car for 10 minutes before I can get into it… perfect for those of us who don’t have underground, heated parking but have to park outside in the snow :P (see car_park). A battery heater is also an essential part of the kit. In addition I had a shovel in my car, just in case. The work car park had been cleared since yesterday, so I just had to find an outside plug to ensure the Bug remained driveable!

This is what I have to look forward to tomorrow:
Wind chill warning in effect. Tonight. Increasing cloudiness early this evening. Wind southeast 20 km/h becoming light this evening. Low minus 31. Extreme wind chill minus 42 this evening.

Indy is clearly less than impressed. He no longer runs to the front door when someone knocks, but sits on the steps a good 2m away. We don’t even threaten him without outside and watch him do a frantic ‘this cat has 20 legs and wants to escape’, because it’s too cold even for that. We’ve even gone as far at to get him a heated bed, so that he doesn’t keep waking us up at night searching for warmth. Spoilt? Us or him.