We've known for about a week that a mass of cold air was bearing down on us. It formed over Siberia, passed over the North Pole and Canada, and has now reached Chicago.
Cassie and I went out just now for 22 minutes, and in that time the temperature dropped 0.4°C (0.7°F), which may not sound like a lot until you do the math (1.2°C/2.2°F per hour). And it will continue doing so until early Monday morning, plateauing but not rising during daylight hours:
Fortunately for us (but unfortunately for a lot of insects and plants), we have almost no snow on the ground after two days of above-freezing weather. Without the snow to lower its albedo, the ground will absorb the abundant sunlight to keep us warmer than we otherwise would be:
The dump of arctic air will be in full swing Sunday night with a lobe of roughly -27° to -30°C 850 mb air waiting in the wings just to our north and west, and this will traverse northern Illinois fully on Monday night. From a climatology perspective, this is just about as cold as we`ve seen (at 850 mb) in the nearby upper air database (Quad Cities and Lincoln, IL). Out of curiosity, went back and took a look at the arctic outbreak from this time last year (January 14 - 17), which featured low temperatures in the -5° to -15°F range and wind chills solidly down towards -30°F (and even lower than that on short time periods). 850 mb temperatures in this case were actually notably "warmer", generally around -20°C. They key difference was a widespread and dense snowpack which we obviously don`t have this time around, which just goes to show the power of snowpacks in altering these arctic airmasses. In this case, little/snow in place, even amidst near-record cold just off the deck, the peak of this arctic episode looks to wind up a bit under where we found ourselves one year ago.
Also, yesterday we had a late-March-like 8.3°C high temperature at O'Hare, and the temperatures should go above zero again on Thursday. The coldest normal temperatures in January occur on the 23rd to the 25th, so this is pretty much right on time.
The worst part of this will fall on Cassie. She only has the two fur coats her parents gave her, and she has no sense of cold. I've explained to her that she's only going to get 5-minute walks from Sunday to Tuesday. She responded by rolling on her back and demanding a belly-rub. I'm envious.
So much to read...tomorrow morning, when I wake up:
Finally, Block Club Chicago wonders why coyotes seem to be everywhere right now? I have two explanations: first, because it's mating season; and second, because of confirmation bias. We had two coyote sightings in strange places last week, and people are seeing more coyotes in general because they want to get laid. So that leads to more articles on coyotes. QED.
President Biden believes we did:
On January 27, 2020, the Commonwealth of Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The American Bar Association (ABA) has recognized that the Equal Rights Amendment has cleared all necessary hurdles to be formally added to the Constitution as the 28th Amendment. I agree with the ABA and with leading legal constitutional scholars that the Equal Rights Amendment has become part of our Constitution.
Law professors Lawrence Tribe and Kathleen Sullivan concur:
With three days left in his presidency, Joseph R. Biden ensured that the United States Constitution, the oldest on earth, would finally include an explicit guarantee of sex equality. In truth, the Equal Rights Amendment should have been recognized as part of our Constitution nearly half a dozen years ago, when Virginia became the 38th state to ratify it on January 27, 2020.
By proclaiming, in effect, “Yes, Virginia, you have made history by repairing a glaring omission in our most fundamental law,” President Biden made official a reality that many Americans failed to recognize at the time: that Article V of the Constitution expressly makes any proposed Amendment to that document “Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States.” Nothing in Article V makes the Constitution’s binding contents depend on any further official action by any branch of the federal government, whether Congress or the Judiciary or indeed the Executive.
It is not necessary for the National Archivist to publish the ERA in order for it to be adopted according to the provisions of the Constitution. The President avoided triggering a clash with the Archivist, who recently announced her intention to defy her statutory, and purely ministerial, duty to publish the ERA. The only reason Congress gave the Archivist such a duty nearly a century ago was to ensure that the Nation got word that an amendment was in force, enabling officials at all levels of government to conform their actions to it. In our modern age of broadcast, cable and internet communication, the President’s announcement itself performed that function.
So...now what? How do we test it? When do we put it in school history books?
Writer and director David Lynch has died at 78:
The director of 10 feature films — or maybe 11, counting the 2017 revival of “Twin Peaks,” which he described as an 18-hour movie — Mr. Lynch received an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement in 2019. He also earned four Oscar nominations for directing “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and for directing and co-writing “The Elephant Man,” a 1980 historical drama about a hideously deformed but beautifully refined Englishman.
“Eraserhead,” his dystopian 1977 debut, featured giant spermatozoa and a singing woman who lives inside a radiator. “Blue Velvet,” a voyeuristic coming-of-age story, opened with a sequence that lingered uncomfortably on swarming ants. “Mulholland Drive,” a neo-noir drama, hinged on altered identities and dreamlike mysteries, including the appearance of an enigmatic blue box inside a character’s bag.
“If you look at TV drama since its inception, shows would tell the audience what they were going to see, show it to them and then tell them what they’ve seen. Nobody was ever puzzled by what was going on,” David Chase, creator of “The Sopranos,” told Time magazine in 2017. “With ‘Twin Peaks,’ Lynch and Frost show it to you and leave you thinking, ‘What did I just see?’ That was revolutionary, and it still is.”
During its first season, on ABC, the show drew as many as 20 million viewers and received 14 Emmy nominations, winning two, behind an ensemble cast that included Lara Flynn Boyle, Sherilyn Fenn, Kyle MacLachlan and Michael Ontkean.
I have fond memories of sitting on a dorm bed watching Twin Peaks with my friend Renee on Thursday nights junior and senior years. I have mixed feelings about "The Return"—really, about everything he did (especially Dune)—and let's not talk about Fire Walk With Me, strangled in the crib by the suits at New Line. The first season of Twin Peaks, though. That really meant a lot to us in college.
He will be missed.
The temperature at Inner Drive Technology World HQ peeked above freezing a few minutes ago:
We last had an above-freezing temperature at 4:25pm Sunday. We expect above-freezing temperatures during the day tomorrow, too. And then, around 2am Saturday morning, the forecast says the temperature will start sliding down to -20°C by 5am Sunday. We expect to have temperatures below -10°C from Saturday morning until early Wednesday morning.
Right now, however, we have clear skies and lots of sun. Time to take Cassie for a half-hour walk.
Today marks the middle of winter, when fewer days remain in the (meteorological) season than have passed. Good thing, too: yesterday we had temperatures that looked happy on a graph but felt miserable in real life, and the forecast for Sunday night into Monday will be even worse—as in, a low of -20°C going "up" to -14°C. Fun!.
(Yesterday's graph:)
Elsewhere in the world:
- Israel and Hamas have reached a cease-fire agreement, with the US and Qatar signing off.
- OAFPOTUS Defense Secretary nominee, former Fox News pretty boy, and all-around fundamentalist crackpot Pete Hegseth sat before the US Senate Armed Services committee yesterday, whose Republican members asked him about "your wife that you love" and whose Democratic members asked him about unlawful orders and the numerous allegations of wrongdoing against him. My combat-decorated junior Senator, Tammy Duckworth (D), flatly called him "unqualified." (She was being polite.)
- Jennifer Rubin calls Hegseth "the greatest DEI disaster ever:" "Considering Hegseth, election denier Attorney General Pam Bondi, WWE exec Linda McMahon for secretary of education, and vaccine denier, brain-worm victim Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for Health and Human Services, one must conclude Republicans are not sending us their best. (Or, the more alarming alternative…they are sending their best.)" Ruth Marcus also piled on.
- Author John Scalzi shares his thoughts on the allegations against and admissions of author Neil Gaiman published in New York this week.
- Chicago's Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) has proposed $1.5 bn in spending to improve transit for the entire area.
- Chicago lost another coyote yesterday when a plane taking off from O'Hare ran him over. (Neither the FAA nor United Airlines has confirmed that the coyote died, but I think we can make an inference here.)
- Last year was the second-warmest on record in Illinois, continuing a long-term warming trend that began after the coldest winters ever in the early 1980s.
Finally, as of today I've had a private pilot certificate for 25 years. When I last posted about this anniversary, I hoped to resume flying later that spring. Alas, something else was in the air. I still want to fly again, though. All I need is a winning lottery ticket.
Yesterday, the temperature at Inner Drive Technology World HQ scraped along at -11°C early in the morning before "warming" up to -7.5°C around 3pm. Cassie and I got a 22-minute walk around then and she seemed fine. Today the pattern completely inverted. I woke up during the warmest part of the day: 7am, -8°C. Around 8am the temperature started dropping and now hovers around -11°C again—slightly colder than the point where I limit Cassie to 15 minutes outside. She just doesn't feel cold, apparently, and would happily stay outside until she passed out from hypothermia.
So, bottom line, I'm in no hurry to take her for her lunchtime walk.
Besides, I've got a lot of interesting stories to read:
- Former Canadian Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff explains why he's a liberal, and why you should be, too.
- Jesse Wegman and Lee Drutman have some ideas about how to fix the United States' "two-party problem:" proportional representation.
- Block Club Chicago lists 10 of its investigations into the Chicago Transit Authority's mismanagement under its outgoing boss, Dorval Carter.
- Chuck Marohn explains why building tons of new housing in old, dense cities like San Francisco and NYC doesn't work as well as people hope.
- Two Illinois state representatives introduced a bill in the state House to decriminalize sex work, which would dramatically increase their safety and security.
- British computer scientist Peter Kirstein died five years ago, and left behind a delightful essay on the beginnings of the Internet—and the Internet's first-ever password.
- James Poniewozik has a fun history of TV show opening titles that will waste a few minutes of your afternoon (in a good way).
Finally, yet another coyote found his way into a store, this time an Aldi in Humboldt Park. Almost 17 years ago one of his ancestors tried to hide in a Quiznos sandwich shop in the Loop. The result was the same for both: removal and relocation. Block Club says yesterday's incident involved "rescuing" the coyote from the Aldi, but that seems pretty harsh. Like, was the coyote trying to go to Whole Foods instead? They're usually not that bougie.
Cassie and I survived our 20-minute, -8°C walk a few minutes ago. For some reason I feel like I need a nap. Meanwhile:
Finally, I want to end with Ross Douthat's latest (subscriber-only) newsletter, taking Vivek Ramaswamy to task for suggesting American kids need more intense competition in order for the US to stay ahead of its peers. I'll just focus on one paragraph, where he suggests Ramaswamy's end goal may not be a place we really want to go:
[T]he atmosphere he’s describing in South Korea, the frantic cycle of educational competition, isn’t just a seeming contributing factor to that country’s social misery; it’s almost certainly a contributing factor to the literal collapse of South Korea’s population, the steep economic rise that Munger describes giving way to an equally steep demographic decline. So for societies no less than individuals, it appears possible to basically burn out on competition, to cram-school your way to misery, pessimism and collapse — something that any advocate of intensified meritocratic competition would do well to keep in mind.
As I have more and more contact with kids born after 1995, I find so many of them who either have flat personalities, an inability to function independently, and an alarming lack of emotional resilience, or who have vitality, intelligence, and an ability to function in the world but no ambition. The last 30 years have crushed the elite-adjacent kids whose parents want them to enter the elite, whatever they think "elite" means. As a kid who traveled alone on public transit to Downtown Chicago at age 7, and managed to get from O'Hare security to LAX security without help by age 8, I feel sorry for these incompetent, despondent children.
The temperature yesterday got all the way up to 2°C at 2:30pm before plummeting overnight to -13°C just before dawn this morning. That means we had the highest and lowest temperatures of 2025 within a single 16-hour period. At least this far below freezing, we don't have all the slush and squish that leads to a towel looking like this after just one walk:
It gets better. The forecast for Tuesday night calls for even lower temperatures, with Wednesday morning being too cold to walk Cassie to day camp (-10°C is her lower limit for a 20-minute walk). But then it'll go back up to 4°C on Friday.
Of course, Wednesday is the mid-point of winter, and Chicago always gets cold in January. Plus, the conditions that lead to these really bracing temperatures bring clear skies along with them, which we do like this time of year. We take the good with the bad here.
I've just finished updating the Weather Now gazetteer, the database of geographical information that connects weather information to locations. This involved re-importing 283 countries and 4,494 administrative divisions from the National Geospatial Information Agency, plus 25,668 weather stations from the National Climate Data Center and 20,166 airports from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Most of these places already existed in the gazetteer, so they just got freshened up from the latest releases of the NCDC and FAA data. And, as I previously complained, the Country and Division records got their correct GEC identifiers.
Next up: a bunch of minor bugs and enhancements on the Place Info and Airport Info pages, so you can actually see the updated geographical data.
First, though, I'm going to take Cassie on a 30-minute walk. It's overcast and gloomy, but the temperature has held at just under 1°C for the past few hours. We won't have the chance to spend 30 minutes outside again until next Thursday if the forecast -18°C temperatures occur.