Four years in Minot! Wow! That's 40 months of winter. Just be thankful that that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

"Why not Minot...? Freezin's the reason..."

Or so I've heard.

Seems like most of the time I'm checking the weather in the winter, the coldest temp in the lower 48 is either Minot, ND or International Falls, MN.

My favorite weather experience was the day we had a hundred degree increase in temps in 24 hours. I don't remember now what the temperatures were, but one day we were freezing in our parkas at way below zero, and the next morning I put on my parka and went out and it hit the 50s or 60s above zero, and everybody was shedding their parkas and showing sweatstains on their shirts. Unbelievable. Winter one day, summer the next. The standing joke was that spring was one day long. We skipped it that year.

It flooded, of course, since the snow was melting like crazy.

The Air Force was very good at survival training, on an off topic note. I had survival training for ditching at sea (I was a Minuteman Missile Combat Crew Member, and we never flew), for jungle survival (no jungles in North Dakota), and for winter survival (bingo!). I was at Camp Pendleton watching the Marine jungle survival training before they shipped to Vietnam - it was about 30 minutes of a guy eating a snake raw and killing a bunny with a karate chop to the back of its head, then skinning and gutting it. One of my fellow ROTC cadets asked why we got such good training and the Marines got so little since they'd actually be out there, and the answer was, "They'll never be in a survival situation." Gulp.

Temperature extremes sounds almost like Minnesota.

Everyone should have a NOAA Weather Radio in their home, vehicles and emergency kits.

http://www.weather.gov/nwr/allhazard.htm


NWR broadcasts warnings and post-event information for all types of hazards: weather (e.g., tornadoes, floods), natural (e.g., earthquakes, forest fires and volcanic activity), technological (e.g., chemical releases, oil spills, nuclear power plant emergencies, etc.), and national emergencies (e.g., terrorist attacks). Working with other Federal agencies and the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Emergency Alert System (EAS), NWR is an all-hazards radio network, making it the most comprehensive weather and emergency information available to the public.