A week ago, it was +20...

today... -22. Yup, no climate change here. As an added bonus, because of the severe weather, buses in my "great" city, are now running up to 1/2 hour late. So, we get the "joy" of waiting - in fucking freezing weather. I need a car. It took me over 3 HOURS to get home today. When I drove - 20 minutes.

and chillblains...

I DID drive today, and I think I could have walked faster. It was h*llish going.

The cold is even tampering with people's minds. Today, an SUV driver let me in. :wtf:

You live in Edmonton, right? Love that city. Much more liberal than Calgary. Although, that wouldn't be a difficult thing to do <heee>. My brother & SIL live there as well. Both post-docs at the U of A.

:hi:

Oh, wait a minute you guys use the Celsius scale right?

Nevermind, dumb American here...

:scared: :scared: :scared:

Hope there's no wind chill. If there is, yikes!!!

I moved here to get away from Winnipeg winters. Guess the joke's on me.

'Cause it's that cold Fahrenheit style here.

in McCarthy, Alaska. Compared to that, Anchorage's 0 seems downright balmy.

The temps. seem to converge at that point.:shrug: But, and here's the kicker... what was the wind chill factor? When I lived in Winnipeg, it would be -40 with a wind chill of -90... exposed skin will freeze in 30 seconds. Yikes. It was bad. That's why I moved to Calgary - I had heard about the chinooks. I want one... NOW!

They're really a welcome relief long about January or so, although sometimes they're really strong, hurricane-force, 100+ mph. Sometimes it'll be 0 or below and within three or four hours it'll be up to mid-40s, everything melting, water on top of the ice -- really great driving conditions. :) It's so weird. I'm not sure about windchills in McCarthy that I mentioned because it's kind of down in among the mountains, and it might be somewhat protected (although I don't know for sure) but there are terrible wind chills out on the tundra.

Do you get the headaches the way we do here? Everytime a chinook rolls in, a lot of people (including me) get these terrible "pressure" headaches. They can be quite debilitating. But, we try to suck it up and enjoy the warm weather (warm being a relative term - we are very happy if it reaches +5 <lol>)

I do remember that I feel kind of weird when the weather changes like that -- not so much headaches, but just really restless and agitated-feeling. But like you say, that's a small price to pay for the little break in the cold.

Good lord. When I first moved here, and went through my first chinook, I, swear to god, thought we had been nuked. The wind was sooo strong (over 100 kph) and hot! In the middle of February. Now, I came from Winnipeg... so hot and February were not two things I would ever put together <lol>.

on New Year's Eve. When we got up in the morning, everybody's cars had slid down their driveways on the melting ice and were all out in the middle of the street. I'd never seen anything like that. And the wind blows so hard, it sounds like a freight train. Every single winter we get these monster winds here, sometimes with quite a bit of damage, but for the national news, it's like Alaska doesn't even exist. Just like when the weather channel gives the cold spot in the nation, somewhere in Alaska is always 10 or 20 degrees colder, but you'd never know. All anybody down south knows about Alaska is bridges to nowhere and grumpy old Ted Stevens -- oh, and ANWR, of course. Oh, well, I guess that's the price we pay for being so far away.

you aren't that far away from us (in Canada). Maybe you should seperate and join the "socialist nanny state" <heee> to your south and east. I probably have more in common (i.e. cold weather, oil, cold weather) than anyone else in your own country! Think about it. If Alaska joined Canada... we could rule the world! In a nice, polite way, of course. I don't want to offend anyone here. Sorry.

We'd get more respect. Wah. Now the USA (or maybe it's you guys) are saying that Americans are going to need a passport to get into Canada, which is really ridiculous for us here because we have to go through Canada to get to the rest of Alaska if we're driving. If we were all one country, it wouldn't matter.

Of course, I've heard rumors that some people think the USA should sell Alaska back to Russia. :rofl:

:woohoo:

At least us "northerners" don't have to worry about hurricanes, just tornadoes.

:evilgrin:

You guys have the best weather on this planet. Paradise so has a downside.

Because we don't have the best weather. We don't even have the most predictable weather. Paradise is a small town north of Lima, Peru, called Truiljo <sp? I'm too lazy to check>... yes, every now and then they have very very minor earthquakes. But, on the ocean, mild weather, asparagus capital of the world... and it's very inexpensive to live there.

Now, if you want a really good place to live in Canada, I would pick Penticton, BC.

I'm in Michigan, and so many women I've talked to want to move north, as I do. Canada has the best weather. Believe it or not, not everyone is looking to Florida. Cold is not a bad thing.