Since yesterday's special on the weather was such a hit, the show has been extended for one extra night! Yes, we are still in the middle of the Saskatchewan Screamer. Temperatures today were in the range of -30 to -40 degrees with the wind chill. Today's air temperature was the lowest recorded at O'Hare in 12 years. At this temperature exposed skin can get frostbite in just 5 minutes. It's so cold that (this is true), on a Chicago radio station today, I heard the Official Weatherperson announce the Official Weather as follows: "And now for our weather on the half hour - right now out there it's (pause) it's cold as hell." That about sums it up. It's so cold that I got a text today from a friend that just moved to California, where it is "only" about sixty degrees. He pointed out that, with the wind chill, there was a 100 degree temperature difference between us. We are no longer friends.
But on the bright side, this air temperature provides a once-in-a-decade opportunity for some weather experiments that I thought were just urban legends. They are not. I witnessed them today on the news, then proceeded to try them out myself, and they work.
Trick #1: Go outside and blow bubbles - you know, kids bubbles. After they are in the air for a few seconds they freeze. If you touch one it doesn't pop. The air goes out of it but the shell stays intact - kind of like a cheap grocery store ball when it gets popped. I had one go on a thorn on the bushes in front of our house. It got impaled on the thorn, and all the air leaked out, but the frozen shell stayed in place.
Trick #2: Boil a few cups of water in a pan. When it is at a full boil, quickly take it outside and throw it in the air. The water never hits the ground. It all converts instantaneously to steam and just floats away. I did this several times. Once, I made a bad throw, and some of the boiling water came back and landed on my face (raise your hand if you are surprised). The water was barely warm. Pretty wild.
The good news is that tomorrow at noon, we pull out of the cold snap. Over the weekend, temperatures will go up by nearly forty degrees. Which means we will almost reach freezing.
Jared
What Have You Been Canning this Summer?
7 years ago
7 comments:
Those are some cool things to try. I'll have to pass them on to Escher's scout troop in West!
Last year Escher built a snow cave with Boy Scouts and slept in the cave on a night when it was -29 degrees. The leaders kept round the clock tabs on the boys, and took one home because of the temps. Escher stayed and roughed it in the cave. Crazy! He actually liked it.
Sounds like you are having fun making the best of it. Im going to have to try that! Cool!
That is CRAZY!!! Holy cow, yikes! Cool tricks to try though. Who knew? You could always work for your -40 merit badge- I watched a history channel show about Alaska awhile back and they interviewed some boy scouts sleeping in snow caves when it was 40 below to get the badge. Can I just say insane??? Good luck with that! Enjoy the "thaw"- freezing will probably feel like summer vacation.
Ha ha! I laughed again. Of course, you would make the best of it and find someway to conduct fun and interesting science experiments in unimaginable weather. Very cool! Just for your sake, I'm hold a brief reprieve in my complaining about our weather here ... it won't last long though, so you better get warming up out there!
Jared, you did this trick for us trick #2. at your first house here on Kenosha. I forgot about that. You and your tricks...!
Yeah, I learned about the boiling water trick as a freshmen at Ricks and have been impressing people for years with it. The colder it is, the better, but you can do that one when it gets to single digits. I will definitely need to try the bubbles one though. It made me not feel so bad that our high temperature on Thursday was +6.
hey - if you publish a PartIII on this topic, we'd love it! usually, we're right there with the great lakes on temp & snow comparisons, which obviously has not happened this year!
we hope you've all made it thru the worst with all digits & noses intact!
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