No Conversion Necessary
Friday, January 14, 2011 at 11:16AM 
You thought this was going to be a soteriological post, didn’t you?
Nope, it’s about my outdoor digital thermometer, which registers to -40. It didn’t register anything this morning.
The nice thing about -40 (Yep, -40 is good for something.) is that it requires no conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit. (Thank goodness for spell-check.* My original spellings of both of those were wrong.) Forty below zero is similarly cold in any language.
A woman in a parka and snow pants just trotted by my house. I think she’s trying to get home as soon as possible. And there goes my neighbor, walking home for lunch. She has hoarfrost on the hair that’s peeking out from under her tuque.
It could be worse. At least there’s no ice fog at my place. The sky is bright and clear and beautiful.
I wanted to take a photo from the second story so you could see the mountains, but the door to the upper deck was frozen shut. So I’ve made do with a photo of the backyard from the back door. This is what cold looks like.
*Did you know that spell-check can be spelled either spell check or spell-check? I know that because my spell-check says spellcheck is wrong.
Reader Comments (11)
I remember ice fog from our days in Saskatchewan. For all the big babies here in Ontario who are whining about -7 Celsius, I'll direct them to this post! Stay warm!
I'm glad you mentioned the 40 thingy. I was too lazy to look it up this time. lol.
At 40 below, celsius OR Fahrenheit, I would NOT be outdoors without a good scarf to protect my lungs. It's easy to frost the lungs at that low temp...which causes congestion/cold/damage to the lungs. I learned the value of a good wool scarf in 6th grade, when for the first winter ever, I avoided bronchitis.
LOL. You totally fooled me. And enough I even left a comment. :-) I love your blog.
The coldest for me was -25 - that was mind numbing enough, but -40? No wonder you blog so much about the weather!! arghh!
I've never experienced 40 below. We keep our fire burning when it's 40 above! I would love to visit, but we better make it in July!
Beautiful photo, Rebecca! I've experienced -30 degrees Fahrenheit when we lived in Upstate New York and its mighty cold! I've got no desire to experience -40!
Brrrrrr!!!! I've seen/felt single digits, but nothing negative, C or F! :)
Oh Rebecca ! That is really cold! I hesitate to tell you how warm it was here today ... I would send some warmth to you if it were possible! (add 124 to your negative 40!) Yep!! 84 warm and sunny!
84 warm and sunny!
I'd take a little warmth if you could send it.
But really, we don't feel like we've had a winter at all if we don't get -40 at least once. I'm hoping that was it and we don't need to revisit.
I heard that -40 was the same in both measurements just the other day. Not sure what other context I could have run across is, as it usually only gets a few degrees Fahrenheit below zero here, and only for a scattered day or two per winter. Anyway, that's really, really cold.
I'm not sure how I got to be so full of extreme cold facts, but can't the enamel of your teeth crack at that kind of cold? Or was someone just putting me on?
Someone is putting you on, I suspect. I've never known that to happen.