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   Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 12-Jan-2024 23:29:54 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

   My old mercury thermometer says -36C and the official weather report said it was "only" -42C with windchill this morning, so the busses are still running (they never cancel school ever, no matter how cold it gets. This place is wild.)

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 12-Jan-2024 23:32:00 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️

     @thomasfuchs Oh really?! I didn't know there was an accuracy limit for mercury, but that totally makes sense. Also, that thermometer came with our house and is probably from the 1950s...so not the most accurate.

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 12-Jan-2024 23:39:36 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️

     @thomasfuchs Oh neat. I should get some mercury to play with! (wait...maybe no)

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 13-Jan-2024 23:55:34 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

     in reply to

     (I just counted, I wore 3 pants-layers and 6 shirt layers. It was almost warm enough.)

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 13-Jan-2024 23:55:34 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

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     It was below -50C windchill all night, and like... EVERYTHING is frozen. The drain in one sink is still frozen (heat gun blowing on it now), the well/house water line was frozen briefly (now thawed), the animal water is frozen - deicer seems to have crapped out, or maybe the outlet.

     It really feels like a battle against nature, and I don't like that! Need to figure out how to live with this better, with fewer crappy, old-school electrical systems. Tonight is supposed to be even colder...

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 13-Jan-2024 23:55:36 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

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     Holy crap why do I live here....

     How have people lived here for thousands of years?!!

     The high for the next 2 days is -31C??

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 13-Jan-2024 23:55:36 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

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     I did chores this evening in -46C windchill. I have to go back out again before bed and check all the animals in the barn. It's -50C windchill now according to the weather report.

     If I wear approximately 17 layers of clothes and lift lots of hay bales, it's actually not too bad after my circulation catches up... (I am trying to psych myself up for going back outside yet again. Uuuuggghhhh.)

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     ZacBelado (zacbelado@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 14-Jan-2024 01:11:39 JST ZacBelado

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️

     @thomasfuchs @sundogplanets The weather is being caused by a collapse of the jet stream that typically keeps the polar vortex in the far north. Due to climate change that jet stream has moved and diminished and allows the polar vortex to slip south. It currently covers a huge chunk of Canada so she would have to move a far way away to avoid it.

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     ZacBelado (zacbelado@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 14-Jan-2024 01:17:21 JST ZacBelado

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️

     @thomasfuchs Not with goats you didn’t :-)

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Jan-2024 00:35:24 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

     in reply to

     GOOD MORNING SUN DOGS!!

     (It hurt a lot to run outside and take this picture in -47 winchill, but it was WORTH IT)

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Jan-2024 00:35:25 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

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     2 mysteries from morning chores:

     1) How did I manage to get frozen milk all over the leg of my coveralls?

     2) Weird satellites! I saw 2 bright satellites (Venus-bright) right next to each other, not moving relative to background stars. So weird it made me drop the bale of hay I was carrying and stare at them, despite the -50 windchill in my face. Over the course of ~20 seconds, they faded, so I guess they were geosynchronous sats that turned their bright solar panels? So freaking many sats...

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Jan-2024 00:35:26 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

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     Windchill was -47 at 6am, so buses are cancelled for my kids' school, and the school where my partner teaches is cancelled altogether (tribal schools are often more sensible about weather than public schools). So everyone is staying home. But it's a normal work-from-home day for me so...this'll be fun.

     Tomorrow is a strike for all public schools here (but not for tribal schools, where teachers are not unionized), and I teach on campus, so it's bring-your-kids-to-work day for me.

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Jan-2024 00:35:27 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

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     Fun with laundry at -45C windchill (damp clothes out of the washing machine froze solid in less than 1 minute. WOW.)

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Jan-2024 00:35:27 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

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     Beautiful fractal ice growing on the edge of the heated water trough, and also on all the gross cobwebs all over the barn ceiling right above the trough. Way prettier than Christmas decorations, good work spiders and physics! Too bad it has to be so cold for this to happen...

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Jan-2024 00:35:27 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

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     Forecast for the next few hours has the windchill solidly between -45 to -50C. Our school division won't run busses if the windchill is below -45C, but the schools NEVER CLOSE.

     (Except for the province-wide teacher's strike that's happening on Tuesday, that's a different story! Wooo! Strike strike strike!)

     *If* one of the cars starts, we can drive the kids to school and hope windchill is above -45 in the afternoon so the bus will bring them home. What weird Saskatchewan games...

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Jan-2024 00:35:28 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

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     Water line to the house was frozen again this morning (thawed quickly though) and we managed to keep the one sink from freezing again by running a space heater on it all night, and a dumb "fix" kept the animal water from freezing. Sigh.

     Only 2 more nights forecast in the -30sC (for now), then Tuesday is supposed to be a gloriously warm -18C. (Pre-Saskatchewan me would either laugh or cry to hear me say that -18C is warm...)

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Jan-2024 00:35:29 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

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     Another funny extreme cold story: when I start up my super fancy "new" car and it's below freezing, it displays what the engineers no doubt thought was a very helpful message:

     "Caution: possible icy conditions"

     When the air temperatures are in the -30s and the windchill is approaching -50C, that message makes me laugh really hard. (Which is good, helps warm me up...)

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Jan-2024 00:35:29 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

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     Upside to stupidly cold temps: very cool atmospheric optics! Here's a sun pillar with a faint upper tangent arc.

     It got pinker as the sun set further, but I couldn't convince myself to take my hand out of my glove to get another picture...

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Jan-2024 00:35:30 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

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     Wooo the drain just started working again! The animal waterer outside seems to be fucked in multiple ways, but we have ideas for how to set up something more reliable - AFTER this current cold snap.

     For now, the animals have lots of snow they can eat (and lots of hay to make up for the extra calories burned by eating snow instead of drinking water).

     Time to venture out for a scouts science thing with my youngest. Because everything just continues here, -50C windchill or no. WILD.

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Jan-2024 00:35:30 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

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     One of the activities at my kids' scouts meeting was a snowball fight. But it's TOO COLD (-47C windchill right now), so they did the snowball fight indoors, with white pom-poms!

     Like I said before, this place is wild.

     I think part of what makes it so wild (to me) is that pretty much everyone here grew up here, so they all think this is totally normal! Gives the absolutely terrifying weather conditions a bit of a surreal feel, as everyone just goes about their business like a normal day