At 5:15 a.m. the thermometer reads -38C outdoors and the mercury has not yet finished plummeting. It will get a degree or two colder as dawn approaches, it always does. The handy-dandy weather station we bought at Costco will faithfully report the indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity plus a variety of other things. The digital display will reflect the falling temperature. There it will be on the counter mocking us with large numbers that I can see even without my glasses on. We might as well have a Jumbo Tron on the counter.
There is no escaping the fact that it is freakishly cold outdoors when faced with the evidence of the countertop weather station. So what do the humans and animals of the swake do about this bone-chilling situation? We hunker down and Greg repeats a phrase I have heard him say many times in over thirty years, "It's always coldest at dawn".
Greg should know. He loves to track temperatures. If you want to know the current temperature, you really don't need to look at the weather station, you just need to ask him. Apart from the Jumbo Tron on the counter, he has two different weather apps on his mobile device, thermometers in his vehicles, and at one point he had a thermometer on his coat zipper. I tell you these details not to poke fun at the man I love but to establish the premise that he pays an unusual amount of attention to the temperature.
However, I have some reservations about the phrases he throws out. I am wondering if he has taken another common phrase about it being darkest before dawn, and mutated it into a weather phrase because it suited him. So I am forced to dig around and figure this out. Is he right or is he just making it up? Has he watched the temperature rise and fall so many days in his life that he has a sufficient database of fact to base his statement on? Or has he just been lucky a few times and he is saying it with complete bluff and conviction?
Today is the day for me to find out whether the phrase is true or whether it is something he has made up. I pop onto the web, the source of most of our truth these days and the source of much baloney. There I find out that the line about being darkest before the dawn is attributed to an old Irish proverb and it is supposed to inspire hope in difficult circumstances. And, wonder of wonders, there is a reference to a similar line about it being coldest before dawn. But apparently that line is wrong, it is actually coldest after dawn, The Weather Notebook will fill you in on the facts.
The fact is it is cold, and it is going to be cold for a few days. Brutally, dangerously, cold. The boiler and the furnace are humming away in the background. My favorite weatherman and I are toasty warm inside watching the sun come up and the temperature go down. This too shall pass -
There is no escaping the fact that it is freakishly cold outdoors when faced with the evidence of the countertop weather station. So what do the humans and animals of the swake do about this bone-chilling situation? We hunker down and Greg repeats a phrase I have heard him say many times in over thirty years, "It's always coldest at dawn".
Greg should know. He loves to track temperatures. If you want to know the current temperature, you really don't need to look at the weather station, you just need to ask him. Apart from the Jumbo Tron on the counter, he has two different weather apps on his mobile device, thermometers in his vehicles, and at one point he had a thermometer on his coat zipper. I tell you these details not to poke fun at the man I love but to establish the premise that he pays an unusual amount of attention to the temperature.
However, I have some reservations about the phrases he throws out. I am wondering if he has taken another common phrase about it being darkest before dawn, and mutated it into a weather phrase because it suited him. So I am forced to dig around and figure this out. Is he right or is he just making it up? Has he watched the temperature rise and fall so many days in his life that he has a sufficient database of fact to base his statement on? Or has he just been lucky a few times and he is saying it with complete bluff and conviction?
Today is the day for me to find out whether the phrase is true or whether it is something he has made up. I pop onto the web, the source of most of our truth these days and the source of much baloney. There I find out that the line about being darkest before the dawn is attributed to an old Irish proverb and it is supposed to inspire hope in difficult circumstances. And, wonder of wonders, there is a reference to a similar line about it being coldest before dawn. But apparently that line is wrong, it is actually coldest after dawn, The Weather Notebook will fill you in on the facts.
The fact is it is cold, and it is going to be cold for a few days. Brutally, dangerously, cold. The boiler and the furnace are humming away in the background. My favorite weatherman and I are toasty warm inside watching the sun come up and the temperature go down. This too shall pass -
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