gosh..................

I'm thankful that it was only -10F Monday night here, about 450 miles north of there.

Not anymore . .

That's down right balmy in comparison. The coldest I've ever experienced is -50F and that was surreal.

I put on my snowmobiling suit and walked around in it for a little while, until there was so much frost on my eyelashes that I had to go inside. I had a down-filled hood with a fur-like ruff making a sort of tunnel in front of my face to warm the air before I took it in. I also had a wool hat and neoprene face mask on, all under that hood, and heavy pile wool fleece lined boots. If you have the right attire, you can enjoy these extremes, for a brief time. Wouldn't want to live in those temps for any length of time... because it's also kind of scary.

Thankfully, the arctic air mass has been pushed off to the east of my location and we are double digits above zero now. We had two and a half days of fierce wind while it was getting here.

At that temp. I was thankful I had the gear and that I had friends who had wood stoves for heat close by so I had a safe place to go if the power failed. Living in a tiny town where extreme weather is common, neighbors look out for each other. Too bad we have lost that sense of community in too many places.

A tiny mountain town when I was in the really cold zone, we were near 7K ft, right outside jellystone. Now I'm further away from there and at about half that elevation just above a big valley. Still gets pretty chilly and it's much more windy here.

Officially the coldest temp recorded in the lower 48 is still Rogers Pass in Montana 30 or so miles Northwest of Helena Mt. where it hit a low of 70- Below zero on Jan 20 1954