I want this, right now:
But this is what I've got, right now:
The forecast, which includes a winter storm warning, calls for lake-effect snow continuing through tomorrow morning with accumulations of around 30 cm. Oh, and it's -14°C out there.
I may not get to 10,000 steps today.
Note that the top photo shows a typical February 14th in St Maarten.
Last night, the temperature got down to -21°C for the first time since 31 January 2019—when it got down to -29°C. But even in 2019 we only had to endure, at most, 7 days below freezing. Today is our 10th in a row, with another 6 predicted. (It may get up to 2°C next Sunday.) If the freeze goes through Friday, we'll have had a longer freeze than the 14 days we had ending 7 January 2018.
Of course, I lived through the longest below-freezing period in Chicago's history, the 43 days between 28 December 1976 and 8 February 1977. Wow, I hope that never happens again.
And hey, spring begins two weeks from tomorrow.
We're having a very cold, very snowy February:
The average temperature for February 2021 so far is among the coldest ever when compared with monthly averages going back to 1875. Even if Chicago recorded normal temperatures for the rest of the month, 2021 would still rank in the top third of coldest Chicago Februaries.
When it comes to snow, 2021 is also ahead of the curve, with a total of 193 mm. Normally there would have been only 89 mm. It will take some work to catch up to the record snowiest February: 737 mm in 2011, the year of the “Snowmageddon” blizzard.
So far this February, our -9.0°C average temperature makes this month the 4th-coldest on record, and it feels even colder following January's above-normal -1.6°C average. Fun fact: February 2015 tied for the coldest on record (-9.7°C). Also fun fact: I'm really ready for spring.
I'm once again not going to get to 10,000 steps today, and that bothers me irrationally. I just need to accept that when it's -10°C and snowing, and I've got a full day of work and chorus business to do that will take me until 10pm, it's OK not to take an hour-long walk to get the steps I need. I'll still manage over 5,000, and I'm certain I'll hit 280,000 for the month. (The worst month I have on record was January 2015, when I got 310,514 steps—just barely 10,000 a day.)
OK, I'm now going to bundle up, put on boots and a mask, and go for what will certainly be a brisk walk. And then I'm not going outside again until tomorrow.
Yesterday I predicted that I would not get 10,000 steps for the first time in 2021. I was right: I got 7,092. Respectable, but not a goal.
Right now I'm at 4,753, so I could get to 10,000 just by going for a 30-minute walk and then doing normal things the rest of the day. Of course, it's -15°C outside, an improvement over this morning's -22°C but still so cold that only obscenities suffice to describe how cold.
OK, I can do this...I just don't want to.
At least, I don't think so. I'm about to go to a very small wedding where somehow we'll all stay two meters apart, meaning I'll be in my car or indoors all day. Outdoors, meanwhile, it's -13°C. It got down to -16°C overnight, so this qualifies as an improvement.
I was hoping to make 10k steps every day this year, but living in Chicago and having some ability to balance "would like to" against "have to" goals, I say no to today.
I will get 5,000 though. I haven't missed that number in six years.
These are just some of the things I read at lunch today:
- Ezra Klein looks at how a $1.9 trillion proposal got through the US Senate and concludes the body has become "a Dadaist nightmare."
- Several groups of ice fishermen, 66 in total, found themselves drifting into Green Bay (the bay, not the city) yesterday, when the ice floe they were fishing on broke away from the shore ice. Given that Lake Michigan has one of the smallest ice covers in years right now, this seems predictable and tragic.
- Writing in the Washington Post, Bruce Schneier laments that government security agencies have to customize President Biden's Peloton stationary bicycle to make it safe to use in the White House—not because of the effort involved to keep the president safe, but because very few people will have a Peloton with that level of security.
- The resident Orca population in the Salish Sea between British Columbia and Washington has immigration issues and declining standards of living. (So far, none of them has joined the Proud Whales.)
Finally, McSweeney's translates US Representative Marjorie Green's (R-GA) non-apology for being a racist whacko into simpler terms.
Chicago's temperature hung out right around freezing from 11am Wednesday until 8pm last night. Then the cold front passed. This morning we woke up to -12°C with "warming" predicted to take that up to -9°C this afternoon. Then...it gets serious:
Below zero [Fahrenheit] wind chills Friday through Sunday drop to -20s Sunday morning.
We're looking at 10 days of overnight lows below -18°C and daily highs around -10°C. But then, this being Chicago, it will warm up like magic the week of the 22nd, and we'll forget once again how we get slammed like this every other February.
It's exactly 0°C in Chicago this afternoon, which is a bog-standard temperature for February 3rd. And it's sunny, which isn't typical. So, with the forecast for a week of bitter cold starting Friday evening, I'm about to take a 30-minute walk to take advantage of today's weather. First, though:
Early February is also the time of year when we start imagining spring. Tomorrow's sunrise is at 7am for the first time since December 1st, and we had 10 hours of daylight last week for the first time since mid-November. Yes, Chicago typically has an Arctic blast sometime during February. But Spring begins in 25 days. We can make it.
It's pretty, though:
And today, we've even got sunlight. Happy February.
I also had a houseguest last night, who has made a thorough job of covering my couch with hair:
Thanks, Sophie.