Bitter cold

Those who watch the little weather GIF on the right side of this blog may remember that about two weeks ago, we had almost 70 degrees Fahrenheit in Cambridge. (Incidentally, you may click the GIF to get more information about the weather in Cambridge.) Warm air was flowing from California directly to Harvard.



The weather has returned to normal, however. The wind is now drifting from Siberia through the Northern pole directly to Cambridge. Now it's 10 p.m. The wind chill has -16 degrees Fahrenheit (-27 degrees Celsius), and the regular temperature is about 3 degrees Fahrenheit (-16 Celsius) and I would expect it to keep on dropping at night and plunge below 0F (yes, it did happen). It's not clear whether we'll break the record low in Boston from 1888: they had 0 degrees Fahrenheit on January 21st and -3 degrees Fahrenheit the following day. Sunday will be even more unlikely to break the record because in 1882 it was -6 Fahrenheit in Boston. In East Milton, they have beaten the 1888 record for today (-1 F vs. 0 F then).



In Bedford, MA, they improved the record for Saturday (-3F from 1888) to -8F. In Bangor, Maine, the Saturday temperature of -29F improved the record from 1934.



Schools in upstate New York were closed as the temperature record -8 Fahrenheit for January 21st from 1984 was improved to -11 Fahrenheit in Syracuse, NY. Windchill ranges between -30 and -20 Fahrenheit. It's still better than one year ago, on January 16th, 2004, when the wind chill in Albany, NY was about -40 Fahrenheit; note that -40 is so chilly that it does not matter which units you use - it's also -40 Celsius. (It was one day after Al Gore gave his major speech about the global warming in New York - an expression of a realistic politician and scientist who knows how to choose the right moment.) :-)



In Massachusetts today (Saturday), it seems sunny but you should expect a snowstorm that will bring up to 1 meter of snow to the state from the Midwest skies. This blizzard could defeat the Great Blizzard in 1978.



On Friday, a record low was also measured in the holy city of Amritsar, India.



Whoever thinks that the temperatures are chilly should know that the actual record is roughly 1 billionth of a degree above the absolute zero.