Our company has Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off, which will allow me to get a bit of rest after my lightning trip to Seattle. And to celebrate, I've broken out the Arran sweater and long-johns, because wow is it cold:
The National Weather Service reported extreme cold and a wind chill of minus 40 in Aurora on Sunday morning and issued a wind chill warning through noon Monday.
Weather service senior meteorologist Brett Borchardt said Chicago narrowly missed breaking the record — 1 degree — for the lowest maximum temperature for Jan. 14. The temperature at O’Hare was 3 degrees “for a few minutes” after midnight Sunday before falling below zero, he said.
“But the air temperature has been below zero [Fahrenheit] during daylight hours today, so I would call that unusual,” Borchardt said.
Sunday night’s low of minus 15 will be the coldest since the polar vortex of 2019.
The official low yesterday was -23.3°C. At last report O'Hare had -22.2°C with a wind chill of -32.3°C, while IDTWHQ reported -19.1°C.
Walking down the jet bridge from the plane to the terminal at O'Hare gave me just a little taste of the cold; walking Cassie this morning gave both of us a full serving. She lasted 4 minutes before pulling towards the house. I don't think she'll get her usual hour of walkies today, and I don't expect to get my usual 11,000 steps. But it should get much warmer on Wednesday—maybe even up to -8°C! So we might get them later in the week.
Now to offload all the crap that accumulated on my phone over the week...