Baby It's Cold Outside!

Well, it's official. Winter is here. Cold, snow, sleet, stuck cars, cold, snow in your boots, shovelling the sidewalk, cold, stalled cars, ice on the sidewalk, cold . . . and did I say COLD?!

So here, to help keep your brain warm now that it's "cold" out there, is a little winter weather trivia.

Ice always melts at 0 degrees Celsius, but water does not always freeze at 0 degrees Celsius. It must freeze onto something - like your windshield! However, at -40 degrees Celsius water freezes spontaneously. If you opened a window and poured out a cup of water - like you're actually going to do that at minus forty degrees - the water would freeze solid before it hit the ground.

Wind chill, that awful little number that has us running for our balaclavas, is the combination of wind and temperature and is based on the rate of heat loss from exposed skin such as that of a person or an animal. As the wind increases, heat is carried away from the body at an accelerated rate, driving the body temperature down. Therefore, the wind chill temperature has no effect on inanimate objects like cars. So ignore it as the cause if your car is a "very" inanimate object. That is - the #@*&! thing won't start!

Ever wonder what the difference between hail, sleet and freezing rain is? Hail is usually a warmer weather phenomenon and consists of chunks or stones of ice that drop from extremely high thunderclouds. Sleet is frozen rain, and freezing rain is liquid rain that freezes when it hits a surface such as a tree or a road - or your car. Now don't you feel so much better knowing that?

But most of us don't mind the light, fluffy stuff, as long as it remains light and fluffy. And not too much of it. The precipitation we accumulate at winter time is quite staggering. A mere 10 inches, or 25.4 cm. of snow is equal to an inch, or 2.54 cm. of rain.

But we shouldn't complain. So far, our winters have been fairly mild, and nothing like the severe winter of 1847-48. It was so cold that heavy ice formed on Lake Erie. When it broke up in the latter part of March, winds swept the ice into the entrance of the Niagara River. The result was that on March 29, 1848, Niagara Falls did not fall.

So now that winter is here why don’t you just spend more time indoors: surf the web; check out eBay; or even better, check out my store of paper treasures. You can find Paper Lion at http://stores.ebay.com/paperlion

And if you must go outdoors button up your coat, zip up your parka, wrap that scarf tight, and pull that toque well down over your ears. And last of all, count your blessings. You could live in Inuvik.