Baby It's Cold Outside

Frigid Front Yard

We're in the middle of a cold snap here along the Front Range.

Temps have been sub 30 for over a week and we're in the depths of it now. As I write this the official temp is 0 but the real temp including wind chill is -12. Tomorrow is supposed to be even colder.

Yesterday we had 60 to 90 mile an hour winds all day. Think tropical storm in Florida stuff but with temps below zero. A little scary. One gust slammed a car door into my elbow. Owww....

Pretty unusual. We rarely get temp readings this low. November was beautiful with mostly clear days in the 60's. Wind speeds get that high here once a decade or two.

I love it. Growing up in California and living there for so many years, I never experienced anything like this.

When it gets this cold and dry you get a kind of painfully beautiful visual clarity. Humidity drops to Saharan or Arctic levels. Everything looks razor sharp and made of crystal.

Materials lose their normal properties so everything acts differently. Snow squeaks really loudly underfoot and snot freezes hard under your nose.

I took some pics in our front and back yards cuz everything looked so new.

One time when our daughter Rebecca was little we drove from LA to Denver during December. We hit a huge tongue of Arctic cold air flowing south while we drove through Utah. Just a few miles outside of Richfield on I 70 heading east we got a flat tire after dark. It was 15 below zero. Jan and I never changed a tire so quickly.

By the time we pulled into Green River, Utah to stay overnight, the temp had dropped to 40 below. Coldest I've ever experienced.

On our way to our motel room I stepped into a large pile of dog do. It shattered into shards and crystals. Who says there's no upside to 40 below temps?