I'm feeling curmudgeonly today.
- Freezing Out the Bigger Picture, International New York Times, 10 Feb 2014
Perhaps this is the real reason everyone is panicking about the cold: Winters have become so mild over the past 20 to 30 years that a blast of Arctic air feels extraordinary.
"When I was a kid ..."
We were our this evening at a Mexican restaurant that serves food tasty enough to appeal to even our non-Mexican-food eater (and that's saying something). When we came out, I took a big gulp of the air and thought, hmmm, not too cold. When we got home, the outdoor thermometer read 18F.
(same thermometer; different day)
My benchmark for the feel of cold wintry air against the back of my throat is probably from South Dakota winters in the 1950s, especially that one time I had to wait for Dad to leave work and pick me up after Brownies. I was so cold while waiting for him outside the school that I remember using my steamy breath to blow SOS signals -- as if he could see them from his office a good five or ten minutes away by car.
When I got home, I probably was treated to the stories of Mom having to walk five miles to school across far fields (which was probably the truth), and to hurry up and set the table.
This weather in the U.S. has been strange, but not (to my mind) extreme. It is February, after all, and February used to mean snowy. Even as recently as the early '80s, but this time in Europe, I remember that in Munich, Germany, we didn't see the sidewalks until at least April. The snowy groundcover was continuous.
The return of what I remember as normal, though, isn't that comforting. Again, from the article:
No matter how cold it got in Wisconsin last week, the world really is warming up.
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