http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/281478/

Is the weather coming next week really that unusual for Minnesota? The article discusses some logistical issues, but I would have thought that Minnesotans would be able to handle that. One person said it would be in the -40F, and that would be for 80 hours.

I come from a warmer climate and with our increase risk-adverse society I am having difficulty determining if this is a knee jerk reaction, or the weather really is that bad for Minnesota.

a school closing related incident most don't consider, beside the transportation liability, is at least in the county I worked, that the school be closed if the toilets don't work... -40F sounds like a good way to burst some pipes..

Good point. I know that frostbite is a concern. http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/windchill/images/windchill.gif -40F is frostbite in 10 minutes. Yikes.

I'll wager that Minnesotans are better judges of their local conditions than anyone else. Correspondingly, I wouldn't expect someone in Minneapolis to tell me when to go to the beach

What's this? Are you suggesting you would take the word of mere locals, over the advice of our world wide panel of experts?

I'm shocked...shocked I say!

"modern times" have made the extreme cold much better to handle.
i moved here in 1969 to finish college in one of the coldest spots in the state,Bemidji.car starting involved taking the air cleaner off and blasting starter fluid,ether,in the carb and with a jump and some luck it would start.if you were lucky you might live someplace where you could plug in a block heater.in the 80's i did that at home plus throwing a tarp over the hood with a big light bulb helped.
now my old canoe hauling car,92 plymouth, with a modern battery and fuel injection has never failed to start.
most everyone has a parka and boots.to take the trash out to the alley tonight i had to put on boots,gloves and a hoodie for the minute or so i was out.


this is a "not joking" shot of what it takes to walk the dogs.
ice fishing boots,lined pants,snow boarding pull overs,shirt,hoodie,north slope parks,ski mask,very big mitts..
the dogs get mushers wax on their paws..
the driving is the hard part which is why i have a kits in the cars to keep warm until the tow arrives,which could be hours.
cell phones making driving nothing like it was years ago when you could be away from town and need help.
but it's all where you live.i was in Tempe AZ to visit my daughter and it was 100 something and i did a "how can you live here" rant..dad we have AC---

We got to 42 below last night, with blowing snow, and I can assure you that it's nasty cold. My Jeep didn't want to start, the roads were a mess, and still were this morning.

Transportation, power and water issues, not to mention plain old hypothermia and frostbite aside, as a parent, I appreciate having a heads up on a school closure, so I can arrange my child care. My son walks to school so I'd likely keep him home in those temps anyway, but knowing ahead of time that he'll be home is helpful.

bac pac...you know we always say.."ya but those folks up in Canada".....and for the weather guy it's.."coming down from Canada"
many years ago i visited a buddy who was working in La Ronge,it was 57F below zero!!!

I think it's partially cultural.

I'm a lifelong Minnesota resident. When I was a kid, we walked a half mile, stood by the road, and then eventually got picked up by the school janitor in an old painters van for the 15 mile ride in to school. Eight hours later, he would deposit us back at the same spot.

Even though weather patterns were a lot colder and snowier on average back then, as kids, we were a lot more outdoor oriented. We already had the protective clothing needed to withstand an arctic blast...like Canoedogs outfit only smaller. You didn't leave the house without buckle boots, scarf, hat, parka, and a set of 'choppers'. Girls wore sweaters, boots and leggings under their skirts, and carried their shoes. I still remember the daily mayhem at school of 'suiting up' for recess and then to go home. No school was complete without a couple of bushel baskets full of lost mittens.

I drive by a highschool every day, and I see kids walking that are woefully under dressed for the weather; in shorts, windbreakers or hoodies, and flimsy shoes.

Not only do they not have the needed heavy clothes, I doubt if they would wear them if they did.

Okay, sounds like things have changed, but it's so cold it's an abundance of caution thing.

That whole "colder on Mars" gave me the visual of everyone in Minnesota and Canada wearing space suits!

Northern women can be quite sexy in goose down parkas and Sorels.

While we are bragging about cold -

A Co, 2/508 was deployed to Fort Greeley Alaska, January, 1980. -69 without wind chill. And we were out in tents. Granted, they were 10 man arctic tents, with stoves, but still.

And of course we deployed to Panama in February two weeks after we got back. Low temp there, 70. Go figure.

LOL! You're farther North than me though, so I blame you guys for sending it "down" here! haha!

We've warmed up today. The thermometer outside my front door says it's 0C. We're supposed to stay around 0 today and tomorrow, with a good dump of snow on the weekend, and then go back into the deep freeze on Monday. No school cancellations here yet, but we're being warned that it's a good possibility.

For those of you who've never experienced this kind of cold, imagine stepping outside and your nostrils freezing with ice crystals inside. It's truly hard to breath.

We're also experiencing something called "frost quakes." I've heard them on a lake before, but never in the backyard. http://www.citynews.ca/2014/01/03/southern-ontario-experiencing-frost-quakes/

Ouch!! Our cold snaps here are the reason I'll never convince my hubby to move to the Yukon with me. BRR!!

Northerners learn to think longjohns are sexy too! haha! Watch for the population explosion in the fall.

When I was up at my brother's fishing lodge, he had one female reporter (from some place in the southern US, I don't recall where). She was part of a team touring fishing lodges for her outdoor articles. Anyway, Gord was relating how they come up in the middle of winter to check on the lodge and to do a little ice fishing every year. The road? Well, the lodge is 60 miles north of Yellowknife through the bush and frozen lakes, so they use snowmobiles. She asked about the usual delicacy - how do you go to the bathroom when it is so cold? As Gord was explaining the "anatomical bare necessities" you could hear the oohs and shrieks and ouches! She couldn't fathom the idea of -50* wind chill. Us Canucks had a little smirk and laugh - its just something we take into stride.

Speaking of cold, its -28*C (-39* windchill) right now and windchill temps are dropping to -50* tonight. I'm prepping to go out snowshoeing this afternoon in the fresh snow we got yesterday. Luckily, I got a new pair of bibbs and new balaclava to try out.

"And of course we deployed to Panama in February two weeks after we got back. Low temp there, 70. Go figure."

My father's unit rained for WWII in the desert near Needles, CA, and then were deployed to new Guinea and the Philippines....

The coldest I have seen was -80 wind chill at 14,000 ft on Denali in June (the so called warmest part of the climbing season).

The kind of cold best experienced and then remembered to all no worse for the telling. Jan 1982 Northfield Mn I suited up like an Apollo astronaut to go out in -30F/30+MPH. I was comfy with everything on that I owned but glad to come back inside. Very much like a walk on a blustery moon. Minnesotans et Al mostly get used to it. Those fair weather shirt sleeve days come along when its 30 and men are in polo shirts. I have often dreamed of living where there's an annual thaw celebrated with a running of the bulls, but no joy so far. Stay warm you huskies!

When your dealing with really cold conditions, it can seem like you are on Mars, and using space suits. As Canoedogs says, it can be a major project just to get dressed to go outside, what with massive boots, big parkas, hoods that form tunnels around your face, overpants, huge mittens. Buildings in really cold regions typically have an "arctic entry", which is sort of like an air lock. Once your outside, the darkness and ice fog can give things an otherworldly feeling.

Bush planes and helicopters don't like to fly when it gets below about -40 F (-40C), though they will in a life or death emergency. Materials behave differenty. Ordinary oil and hydraulic fluid tends to get thick, rubber and plastic gets brittle. Equipment meant for the arctic often use special steel alloys, since even regular steel gets somewhat more brittle.

As JBMat found out, in Alaska the coldest places tend to be the interior basins, such as the Yukon Basin or the Tanana Basin. They develop strong inversions, and there can be a big temperature difference between the bottom of the basin and the surrounding hills. There is a reason people in Fairbanks like to build their houses on the hills (hint: it is not just for the view). On the North Slope, the coldest I've experienced was about -60F (-51C) ambient, which was a near record low for Prudhoe Bay. That day there was just the very slightest hint of a breeze, and I absolutely could not look upwind, or my face would fall off!

Here in Anchorage, we have a strong marine influence, which tends to moderate temperatures. Typically the coldest we see in Anchorage is probably around minus 20F (-29C), and I think the record low for Anchorage is somewhere around -30F (-34C). The thing about Anchorage is how much the weather can vary depending on what part of town you are in. On the west side of town near the airport it might be -5F (-20C) and at the same time at roughly the same elevation on the east side of town (at the foot of the mountains) it can be fifteen degrees colder. When the Chinook Winds blow, it can be blowing 90 mph (145 km per hour) in the subdivisions up on the hillside, and be only slightly breezy on the west side of town.

Not to mention atheletic women out cross country skiing in tight lycra!

AKSAR: When I was in Anchorage in the late '80's (Air Force), I went to the Winter Carnival and rode the Ferris Wheel at -20F. It was brisk!

Ah yes, the joys of "Fur Rondy"! I remember when my daughter was young, dressing her in every stitch of clothing she had, and we still froze our butts off on the rides. Fortunately they have warming tents set up to thaw out.

My parents, both 78 years old, still live up in central Minnesota (sucks to be them). I talked to dad yesterday and he mentioned the governor closing the schools and telling people not to go to work if they can avoid it...but in the words of my dad, "He didn't say anything about senior citizens not going out for coffee so ma and me went." No worries from me, dad carries enough winter gear in his Subaru to outfit a platoon of Norwegian warriors!
-Blast, who found today's 55F weather in Houston, TX a bit chilly.

Well Blast ... I'm up in that freezing air right now. Not Minnesota, but St Louis and it is darn cold out there tonight (5 Jan). Have not felt wind chill like that since i lived near Chicago. Polar air. Nearly froze my face off walking to a pharmacy to get my wife some meds. Ain't love grand. Hahaha!!

Pete

i took off my gloves for just a minute this afternoon to take a few photos and my fingers felt frozen for to long after that!
for the first time in a long time we did not suit up and walk the dogs after dinner,i think that was just fine with them....

Yeah, it's fairly common at a certain point to just close school. My wife is from WI and if the temp was a certain point, the governor could call it off. Apparenlty the local school boards could do the same thing.

Problems w/ cars not starting, having to wait at the bus stop, kids licking telephone poles, etc. Plus, if it's bad enough that the school teachers can't get there, it's kind of silly to make the kids go.

Also sets up a conundrum if the teachers' kids can't go to school, then they have to call out to take care of their own kids ....

I would assume the kids today are also typically more wussies than in years past. Thanks, old folks, for making video games and damning your kids to being those wusses.

For the record, it's 16 here in Charleston this morning. Not nearly the -5 I had in AK, or the 4 that was in WI over Thanksgiving, but a nice brisk temp none the less. Too bad my dog doesn't have the insulated, 100lbs dog house we had when we lived in Michigan.

MD..no wussies in Minnesota,here is a shot of kids doing "one match fires" in sub zero weather a few years ago.
local schools brought them out to a nature center for snow shoeing and a couple of us gave them a run down on fire making,gave them one wood match and let them loose,with an adult watching of course.

Canoedogs! You need those photographer gloves where the index finger & thumb can fold back & open like mittens. The problem is that those gloves aren't terribly thick. But something is better than the cold on bare skin.

I went out and took pictures in -10 degs F. The cold is really beautiful. I was wearing a balaclava, which directed my breath upward. That would fog up anything you put near your eyes -- glasses or the optical viewfinder (for those of us who still use them). My camera ended up with some icicles hanging off exterior of the viewfinder. After half an hour, I was shooting half blind because of the fogged viewfinder.

Do you guys know of a solution? How do you cover most of the head without causing condensation around the eye area? It almost seems unavoidable, because the nose is built right there.

Been there, done that and have still have my Viking Council "Wind Chill Thriller" badge for camping out at -50F back in the earlier 80's.
-Blast

You could use an inexpensive face mask together with a pair of cheap Ski Goggles.

Canoedogs,

For years I have worn fingerless gloves (not really fingerless, just the outer joint or so removed) inside my mittens to keep the hands warm longer when you have to remove the mittens. My favorite ones are woven rabbit fur. If the camera or other equipment is really cold, I also wear a pair of thin (usually silk) contact gloves over them. You can then touch items that you would freeze to.

They work best in mittens like yours (where did you get the ones shown in Orange Box @ 14 below?, I have been looking for a new pair) that can be removed with a snap of the wrist. I learned from some Inuit that I worked with to use them this way. Keep them on strings (back to gradeschool) and size them so that the mitten can be flipped off and replaced without the other hand.

Bingley,

If you use a balaclava, you need to pull it down below the mouth while you are taking pictures. Try to keep the nose uncovered. Otherwise use a mask like AFLM recommended or even an N95 mask with an exhale valve to move the moisture away from the camera. A good deep hood with a proper fur ruff will usually keep your sunglasses warm enough to avoid the fog, but not always. It will not work for your camera, it gets cold out there. :-) I have had to go to slit goggles in some of the worst conditions.

Respectfully,

Jerry

Jerry..i got the mits at a store in Canada,a "trading post" for tourists in Terrace Bay or Marathon.it's been 20 years so i don't recall which.we tenting by the lake in what was a WW2 POW camp.
they are the best winter mitts i ever had.the store had some tourist odds and ends but also had some high quality stuff like wolf furs and carved soap stone that was more than the normal Inute seals you see everywhere.
fingerless gloves..got two but like the folks who don't take the right gear because "who needs it" i left them home that day.....