The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Cooling off dramatically

Cold fronts always seem to arrive with more fanfare than warm fronts, even when they don't bring precipitation or even clouds with them. Here's the U.S. situation as of 7pm this evening:

Since then, the cold front shown draped over Chicago has moved east, passing over the city at almost exactly 8:35 pm. I know this because I had the windows open so their paint could dry.

Some explanation: Because it's critical that the Inner Drive Technology International Data Center not melt, I keep careful watch on the server rack's temperature. At 8:32pm, the servers labored under oppressive 30.5°C heat—very close to the point where they shut down spontaneously. Five minutes later, the temperature had dropped 1.5°C; five minutes after that, another 1°C; and within an hour—that is, by 9:27pm—the server rack was ticking along nicely at 25°C.

Ordinarily, when I know the temperature outside will hit 30°C, I turn on the A/C. Today, however, I had painters working on the windows, which meant for several hours I actually had none. (Windows, that is.) So my poor servers had to deal with box fans and whatever happened outside.

I, also, was sitting outside at the time, wearing shorts and a polo shirt. Officially, the temperature dropped just as precipitously in the real world as it did in my apart—er, office: from 27°C at 7pm to 19°C at 9pm.

Warm fronts sneak up on you. Cold fronts, while appreciated in the summer (as tonight's was), hit hard. Sometimes, looking at the actual data, it surprises me how hard they hit.

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