How cold was it?

It's so cold out that the icicles are shivering. Well, it certainly has been colder than this, but with an unusually warm winter we are just not used to it. It got up to -3F (-18C) yesterday and the wind was in the 20 to 30 mph range. Walking into it felt like I was wearing a Portuguese man o' war on my face. The horses have been staying out of the wind during the day and spending the nights in the barn with comfortably bedded stalls, heated water buckets, and plenty of hay.

If you want to read a book about some REAL cold temperatures and you like mysteries try this:
Murder 90 Degrees South 
It's chilly at the South Pole!

How cold was it? It was so cold:
we pulled everything out of the freezer and huddled inside it to warm up! 
 terrorists started to stockpile weapons-grade hot chocolate! 
 the politicians had their hands in their OWN pockets! 
 my mail broke when I tried to pry open the envelope! 
 I actually enjoyed it when someone spilled scalding hot coffee on my lap!
 Richard Simmons started wearing pants! 
 Pamela Anderson was downgraded from "hot" to "tepid". 
 kids' grades seemed to be improving at school - when you apply the wind chill factor, a 57% looks like 93%! 
 e-mail was almost useless. It's hard to understand a message when it's typed while wearing three pairs of heavy woolen mittens. 
 I actually enjoyed political speeches. That's how desperate I was for some hot air. 
 the trap-door in my woolly long-johns froze shut. 
 Apple introduced the iParka. 
 Scotsmen were wearing down-filled kilts. 

It is January along the U.S. Canadian border, so, yeah, that's just what it is. On the "warmer" days you may catch a glimpse of the sun. Here it was on the way to work the other day. It only showed itself for a few minutes.

Later in the day, before I left work, the sun exposed a bit of light for a few more minutes. It lit up the sky in a lovely manner.

The next day, back on the farm, we catch the moments before sunset when it breaks through the cloud cover to light things up for a few minutes.

The morning after that, however, the temperature had dropped into the -14F (-27C) neighborhood which causes the lake to produce "sea smoke". When the cold air mixes with the relatively warm air above the lake (above freezing) it makes a type of fog. The steam columns get quite high but dissipate as the temperature gets above 0F (-17C). Ships cannot be seen until it warms up.

So when it warmed up a bit later we got to see this:

This is the Edgar B. Speer heading from Two Harbors, Minnesota to Conneaut, Ohio on Lake Erie. She is 306 meters in length and has a beam of 34 meters. It has a draft (draught) of 8.7 meters and was traveling at about 10 knots.
Here is one of the coolest apps I have ever run across:

http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-86/centery:45/zoom:6

You can use it to find every ship on the seven seas. It is a good diversion on a cold winter day.
Stay warm!