“If you’re going through hell, keep going” is a quip often attributed (but possibly erroneously) to Sir Winston Churchill, Great Britain’s prime minister during World War II. Many Minnesotans embrace the snowy, icy wonders of winter. Others hold their (frostbitten) noses and try to hang on until April.
I have two inflection points, two dates that help me tolerate Minnesota’s windchill tax. Dec. 21: least daylight of winter. We’ve picked up 25 minutes of additional daylight since then; by late February an additional two hours of daylight.
Jan. 17: the midpoint of the mean of coldest average temperatures. Looking at 30-year climate data this is when temperatures, historically, “bottom out.” Did that help at all? Oh, well, I tried.
The big picture: Multiple volleys of arctic air on the way over the next 10 days. A dry Saturday but 1-2 inches of snow Sunday followed by low single-digit highs Monday. An even colder swipe? A week from today we may be looking at subzero highs statewide, with windchills of minus 30 degrees.
A poignant reminder that we live in a distant suburb of Winnipeg.
