January Winter

Two weeks ago -- see January 5 -- I was writing about January Summer. Today, January 19, I can say something about January winter.

My car allows me to select displays in either the U.S. or the metric system. I've been setting this feature on the metric system to help me learn the "cold" temperatures. I know what 28 or 32 C are -- but I didn't have a good frame of reference for the cold temperatures because I usually am not in a place where I need to use the Celsius system in the winter. Yet, the kids I teach in Europe in the summer ask me about cold, so this year I'm learning.

Here's what my display showed this morning in the underground garage.

And oh what a luxury it is to have an underground garage!

Here's what the display showed when I got to work. This drive takes about 5-6 minutes. 

A conversion table I found on the Internet tells me -23C is -9F. Anyway it was cold, and a cold walk from the parking lot to the buildings because the university is located on top of a river bluff and the wind does blow up there.

One news commentator asked why are we even talking about cold weather -- this is statistically the coldest week of the winter.

This year it's just so strange to have cold weather such as this when there isn't any snow. Here's the view out my window this afternoon:

If you have time, look back at my blog entries for January 2011. You will see much different views. But thank heavens, Minnesota is a place where the sun shines most of the winter rather than having day after day of clouds.