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Sunday, November 30, 2014

Real Winter

I quite enjoyed trudging around in the fresh snow, taking pictures in balmy -7 C the other day (that's 19.4 F for those of you on the Fahrenheit scale).  The very next day, I woke up, looked out the window onto another pretty clear day, and contemplated taking some more pictures.  That's when I checked the temperature gauge and went...



It was -28 C, which is even in the minus range for Fahrenheit, that's -18.4 F.  Plus, unlike Bermuda, we have a factor that is reported along with the weather called wind chill.  Bermuda definitely had wind chill, the perceived decrease in air temperature as felt on skin due to the flow of air -- anyone riding a scooter on a January night can attest to that.  But most people I spoke to down there were unfamiliar with the the term.  It is part of the daily vocabulary in Canada though.  On this day, the wind chill temperature reported was -38 C, or -36.4 F.  For my colleagues in Bermuda from Jamaica and the Philippines who were asking about snow and weather here a few days ago...yes, it is 100 degrees Fahrenheit colder where you are than where I am now.  I decided to stay indoors.

For those mathematically inclined, wind chill in North America is calculated as Twc=13.12 + 0.6215Ta - 11.37V*0.16 + 0.3965TaV*0.16 where Ta is actual temperature in C and V is the wind speed in km/hr 10 feet off the ground.  For those of you not mathematically inclined (Helen in Bermuda, this is for you), it means a windy day feels about 10 colder than a calm day, and worse on a super cold super windy day.  Yes...


I decided to look a little closer at the windows, from the inside of course.  One had completely frosted over, obscuring any visibility whatsoever.


But in looking just a little around the edges of my unhappy face in the window, I found the magic of Jack Frost.


 
And especially along the edges, you could see how the frost had crept inside the mesh of the screen window, and gently weaved itself in and around the framework.  Europe has it's climbing vines, Canada has it's climbing frost :)

 
Mission accomplished...I found something beautiful in my day and even my windowman started having a better day.  Again, it's all about perspective.




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