Rambling Rhodes

Snow Use Complaining, But Damn

Snow Use Complaining, But Damn It's Cold

I emerged from the house this morning, and immediately I knew it was cold. The plumes coming from the neighborhood chimneys were thicker than normal, and some seemed to be frozen in time. The key seemed to actually fight back as I tried to plunge it into the ignition, and the ignition itself turned only with great effort.

Now, I own a reliable Cadillac Eldorado, and it has ALWAYS started for me. For a brief moment this morning, however, I thought my Caddy's starting streak was about to come to an end. It issued a labored, drawn-out hacking sound, not unlike an aged substitute high school teacher hawking thick phlegm into a tattered hanky, totally grossing out the students. *hack. . .hack. . .hack. . .hack. . .hack*

"Geez," I said aloud. "How freaking cold is it, for crying out loud?"

With a last hack, my car came to life, and I looked down at the digital temperature display to see what the outside temp actually was: - 8. Any time my car has to precede a number with a dash, chances are it's not a good thing. Negative eight degrees! fuck, it's cold! For you metric Europeans, with your super-modern measuring techniques, -8 degrees Fahrenheit translates into -22.22 degrees Celsius. Oy. Then again, it's 250.9 degrees Kelvin, so that sounds pretty warm. It's also -17.78 degrees Reaumur.

What the fuck is Reaumur? Answer: The Reaumur temperature scale is named after the French scientist Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur (1683-1757). He proposed his temperature scale, in 1731. Reaumur divided the fundamental interval between the ice and steam points of water into 80 degrees, fixing the ice point at 0 Degrees and the steam point at 80 degrees.

Seriously, don't the French have anything better to do besides sitting around dividing the fundamental interval between the ice and steam points of water into 80 degrees?

Ah, but negative eight degrees was only the still air temperature. We hearty Minnesotans, however, want to hear about things like wind chill. According to the radio announcer, the wind chill factor translated into -33 Fahrenheit. That's -36.11 Celsius! That's 237 degrees Kelvin, which still sounds pretty warm. And, for you uppity French folks with your strange ice and steam dabbling, that's -28.89 degrees Reaumur!

It's so chilly out, even the snow is complaining about the cold. I love Minnesota, but our winters really, truly, absolutely fucking suck.

Posted by Ryan at January 23, 2003 01:32 PM