Where did the snow go? Why isn’t the storm of the century blasting its way through Southeast Idaho yet? Whatever happened to winter? And if you think we’ve got something to complain about, let me regale you with some extreme cold weather facts.
In other words, if you reside in Antarctica, maybe you would have good reason to whine. On July 21, 1983, what is thought to be the coldest temperature ever recorded on earth occurred. It was — are you ready for this — minus 128.5 degrees F.
OK, OK, maybe that’s not the chilliest temperature ever since the world existed (think Ice Age), but since 1912, when humans began recording temperatures for whatever reasons, minus 128 degrees is icy enough!
This coldest temperature happened at Vostok, a Russian research station (and the Russians know a few things about extreme cold). The station sits astride an ice sheet and the elevation is 11,220 feet. With no wind, being on top of a massive block of ice and clear skies, you can bet this place was primed to be extra, extra cold.
Years ago (back to the Ice Age again), I lived in Cut Bank, Mont., and I can recall some freezing temperatures that I thought were extreme, but what would you expect from a Southern Californiagirl?
Back in the early ‘60s, circa 1963-1967, we lived in Cut Bank because my father had been transferred there for business reasons. Nobody in my family had any clue what we were getting into. Daddy may have had a taste of cold when he served in the Army during World War II in Germany (how he stole a jacket to keep as warm as he could). But the rest of us?
Firstly, Cut Bank is a dinky little town pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Its one claim to any fame is the Lewis and Clark expedition went through the area and made note of the “cut banks” that lined the small river nearby. Since Lewis and Clark didn’t bother to claim this spot forAmerica, my guess is they were singularly unimpressed and moved on.
Cut Bankians (Cut Bank residents) recorded the moment and the supposed spot with a small, rusty metal plaque that claimed “Lewis and Clark Trail” on the grass in front of Cut Bank High School.
That’s it. You’d miss the sign if I hadn’t told you. By now the sign is likely long gone, probably trampled by hordes of students (all five of them).
Anyway, one year while we lived there it was noticeably cold. As in piles and piles of snow as far as the eye could see, all the way to the horizon, smashing down the wheat in the wheat fields, leaving residents blind from all the snow glare. The smallest breeze (usually of hurricane force, or “snowicane” in this instance) would make things drastically cold.
As in busted pipes cold. As in don’t try the stupid trick of sticking your tongue onto a metal surface cold. As in if you’re fool enough to go out in it, we’ll check on your thawed remains in the spring or summer (snow was common enough in the month of June, so Cut Bank’s one month of warm weather was usually August).
How cold was it? With the wind chill factored in, the temperature was about minus 50 degrees F.
I do remember rejoicing that schools were closed for the duration, and that it was the talk of the town for a few days, but as soon as we could we all got back to our usual routine, in this case my brother and me spent our days sledding down gopher-size mounds into barrow pits next to U.S. Highway 2. Or building snow forts. (I have pictures to prove it.)
Anybody who lives in cold climes shrugs their shoulders — “no big deal” — at a balmy -50 degrees. For instance, Russia has a town located in its Siberia area, called Oymyakon, that has average winter temperatures in the minus 100s or thereabouts. The city lives with permanent permafrost. The residents have learned a few ways to not let the cold get the best of them.
They recommend people not wear glasses. They highly recommend using indoor toilets (the first indoor toilet came to Oymyakon in 2008, at the local school). If you have a vehicle, let it run all the time. It goes without saying that you bundle up appropriately (bear skins, reindeer hides). Hunting and ice fishing are the most common occupations, and the one store in town often lacks necessary provisions that would seem downright uncivilized to the rest of the world.
Back in earth’s old days, as in the Ice Ages, which occur about every 650,000 years or so, things were pretty darn cold. Glaciers and ice sheets covered parts of the planet that extended well into North America,Asia and Europe. You had to be tough to survive, and that’s why now-extinct huge, fur-covered animals roamed these regions, such as mammoths and mastodons, woolly rhinos, bison, camels, horses, big cats, wolves and bears. Mankind struggled along, but most of our ancestors kept to Africa to avoid the worst of the cold. What a bunch of wusses.
If and when our wintery blast ever comes to Pocatello, we might thank our lucky stars (and knock on an icicle) that things here aren’t too bad.
Then again, there’s always the hope we might break a record — record cold, record snow, record blizzard, that is.
Wait, I’m kidding!
Jodeane Albright is the community editor of the Idaho State Journal.
Tags: antarctica, coldest temperature ever recorded on earth, extreme cold weather, lewis and clark expedition, russia, russian research, weather facts, world war ii
