Groundhog Day!
Turns out Groundhog Day is a win-win situation around here. If the groundhog fails to see his shadow, winter will end soon. If he does see his shadow, then winter ends in six weeks, or, as they say around here, "really, really soon."
In the meantime, it's going to be cold around here for a little while. The local paper forecasts highs of minus-17 over the weekend, with a low of minus-21 tonight. Subtract wind chills from that and you've got yourself some genuinely cold weather. Even the natives are taking note. We'll see if we can get to those cold-weather physics experiments this weekend.
It doesn't really feel all that cold if there's no wind. It was minus-5 the other morning when I was dropping Ellie off to school, and the air was still. I found I didn't really even need to zip up my coat to be comfortable. I was glad I wasn't walking two miles in it, but for walks from car to door, it was just fine.
We had an interesting test last night: Jen was still out of town and I was arriving home with the kids. We pulled into the garage, closed the door, and within 30 seconds the overhead light turned off. Odd. The light on the garage-door button was also off. The door would not go back up.
We'd arrived home just in time for a power outage! How exciting.
We found some flashlights, lit some candles, and called the power company. They were already on it. The kids were running around with their flashlights, getting ready for bed, and all of a sudden, I had a momentary twinge of panic. What if we needed the flashlights to get out of the house, to get the van out of the garage? I scooped up all the flashlights, turned them off, and made the kids navigate by the light streaming in our windows from nearby streetlights and the reflection of the moon off the snow. Turns out it was plenty; after his eyes adjusted, Joey found he could even read by the ambient light.
It was late, so we brushed teeth by candlelight, and I put the kids down. They wanted to sleep upstairs, since heat rises. No dice. The house is pretty tight, and Jen had bought the kids down comforters just in case.
About an hour later, the power came back on to stay. The house had hardly cooled at all, even though it was about minus-6 outside. The furnace fired up for a few minutes, and all was well. Jen arrived home 20 minutes later from the airport to a non-frozen family.
In the meantime, it's going to be cold around here for a little while. The local paper forecasts highs of minus-17 over the weekend, with a low of minus-21 tonight. Subtract wind chills from that and you've got yourself some genuinely cold weather. Even the natives are taking note. We'll see if we can get to those cold-weather physics experiments this weekend.
It doesn't really feel all that cold if there's no wind. It was minus-5 the other morning when I was dropping Ellie off to school, and the air was still. I found I didn't really even need to zip up my coat to be comfortable. I was glad I wasn't walking two miles in it, but for walks from car to door, it was just fine.
We had an interesting test last night: Jen was still out of town and I was arriving home with the kids. We pulled into the garage, closed the door, and within 30 seconds the overhead light turned off. Odd. The light on the garage-door button was also off. The door would not go back up.
We'd arrived home just in time for a power outage! How exciting.
We found some flashlights, lit some candles, and called the power company. They were already on it. The kids were running around with their flashlights, getting ready for bed, and all of a sudden, I had a momentary twinge of panic. What if we needed the flashlights to get out of the house, to get the van out of the garage? I scooped up all the flashlights, turned them off, and made the kids navigate by the light streaming in our windows from nearby streetlights and the reflection of the moon off the snow. Turns out it was plenty; after his eyes adjusted, Joey found he could even read by the ambient light.
It was late, so we brushed teeth by candlelight, and I put the kids down. They wanted to sleep upstairs, since heat rises. No dice. The house is pretty tight, and Jen had bought the kids down comforters just in case.
About an hour later, the power came back on to stay. The house had hardly cooled at all, even though it was about minus-6 outside. The furnace fired up for a few minutes, and all was well. Jen arrived home 20 minutes later from the airport to a non-frozen family.
posted by Tom at 1:47 PM
1 Comments:
You can do especially fun things with bubbles if you cool the solution down to juuuust above its freezing point. When I was a kid, I discovered that blowing the bubbles with my warm breath would cause the bubbles to rocket up into the air (presumably because the warmer air in the bubble would rise in the cold outside air). I wonder how that would work in sub-zero weather?
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