‘Wickedly’ cold weather on its way
A few days ago, I heard a weather TV personality describe the upcoming weather for Sunday and Monday to turn wickedly cold. Another TV news program insists on using wind chill as the temperature instead of the actual air temperature or at least a combination of actual and wind chill. There is no doubt that wind chill values make it feel colder than if the air is while calm.
The hype of wind chill makes for more sensation and I guess that it is designed to get us to just stay tuned so that we can all share in the misery of the millions of folks who will be affected with this next storm and its ice, snow and brutal winds. The interesting thing about wind chill temperatures is that if you have bowl of water outside and the air temperature is 36 and the wind chill is 20 degrees the water still will not freeze.
It looks like a chunk of arctic air from the frozen reaches of the polar region is on its way for a visit this weekend and into early next week. Temperatures in Fairbanks, Alaska have been running from -25 to -42 degrees, but have warmed a little as the chunk of air headed our way makes its exit from Alaska to Southwestern Pennsylvania and south all the way to the Gulf Coast and Florida. We could see a few places drop to around zero, but at this point the cold air should moderate in a few days although it will probably stay on the cold side for the next week or so with average temperatures a few degrees below normal.
A few of us may think this is wickedly cold, but for most it is just a bit of winter. A few years ago Fairbanks, Alaska recorded their lowest temperature ever at -66 degrees. The coldest temperature ever in Alaska was -80 at Prospect Creek Camp on Jan. 23, 1971. The world record for cold from an official weather station was -128.6 degrees at Vostok, Antarctica on July 21, 1983. Even in warmer climates, Mexico has a cold record of -18 degrees at Los Lamentos and our neighbors in Cuba recorded a low of 32 degrees at the Havana Airport. I guess it鈥檚 all relevant to what we are used to experiencing, but I still have a difficult time with a temperature of near zero as being wickedly cold. Perhaps the wind will determine if it is wicked or not.
Stay warm and out of the wind.