Better keep the brass monkeys in tonight (-46C)

Holy 'ell! It's COLD out there. Extreme cold snap on the Canadian Prairies.

Current official temperature is -43C with windchill at -53C. It's supposed to drop to -46C tonight.

Heavy icefog on the highway too. The car surely wasn't happy, but it got me there and back.

I can't give you an on-the-ground temperature. My thermometers don't have gradations below -40.

Not a night to be stranded, even if you're reasonably well prepared.

Tonight I'm going to curl up by the wood stove and Christmas tree with a brandy and my DW. Tomorrow I'm going out to build shelter and fire.

Doug..photos of the shelter would be interesting..with the cold snap down here and a good snow fall i was thinking about using the stuff i shoveled off the walks and car park for a snow shelter and see if the one candle trick really worked.

Jeez! I'm miserable here at 8ºF!

Sue

well see there Sue,you have one survival issue beat--no need to carry a kit around in your car just to drive for a loaf of bread!

If calculations are correct it would be -32F at -46C

Mike

Negative. F and C cross at -40. If it's below -40C, it's below -40F. -46C = -50.8F.

If that were true, I'd switch back to *F in a second. No, the two scales converge at -40, and -46C is -50.8F. [EDIT: Whoops, sodak beat me to it.]

When I went to bed last night it was officially -43C/-45.4F. It's all academic past a certain point; it's just stupid bloody cold. I can take a reasonable amount if it's dead calm. But the slightest breeze really makes it absolutely miserable.

I didn't get around to building a shelter at all. I was focused on keeping the primary shelter (our old house) together. The furnace is working awfully hard, and so is the wood stove. The cars have held up, but get very stiff at highway speed (no surprise; imagine the wind chill factor).

This slug of arctic air is supposed to push off starting Wednesday. Good riddance. Meanwhile, all the folks in Yukon/Alaska/Northwest Territories are no doubt rolling their eyes in amusement -- "buncha wimps and whiners down there, you don't know what cold is" etc.

You've made my day. Albany tomorrow morning will now seem tropical by comparison.