I survived the polar vortex!

As you may know, I live in Wisconsin and it has been horrible this week. It started off with a storm that dumped around 10 inches of snow, which is way too much. I hate snow and anything more than a couple of inches is pretty terrible. Thankfully, the commute to and from work went well enough for me, but there were and are still so many cars in the ditch. 

Making things much worse was the absolute cold. On Wednesday we had a low of -20 and this morning we had a low of -24. To compare and industrial blast freezer has a temp of 20 degrees so you would have been warmer in there than you would have been outside this morning. Plus, the weather was so cold that salt doesn't work to melt snow so all the roads are still covered with ice and snow, despite being plowed repeatedly. 

I made it through ok though. I did have to go outside a bit and it was not fun. I was prepared though. Before I went outside I wore three shirts, a heavy hooded sweater and a winter jacket. I also had two pairs of socks, long underwear, a hat and gloves. It was still way too cold out there. 

What people might not realize from warmer climates is that it isn't the cold that is the worst thing. It's the wind. We had 20mph winds on Wednesday so even though it was colder today, it felt a lot worse with a -40 degree windchill on Wednesday. Standing in a windbreak at -24 isn't that bad, but if you step out into the wind then things really start to suck. 

Thankfully, the polar vortex seems to be over. Tonight we have a low of  only -10. That's still really cold but much more normal for winter in Wisconsin. It will warm up over the weekend until it gets to unseasonably warm temperatures. With highs in the upper 40's it will be so warm that I won't know what to do with myself. 

I do hope that this is the last of the cold weather for awhile. Though I didn't have any real problems this week, it could have easily been much worse. My car started well and stayed on the road and my heat stayed on. None of those things were guaranteed though, and the winter weather remains one of the major downsides of living in Wisconsin.