It's All Relative

The title is in reference to winter weather… yours, mine, and that found elsewhere. Speaking of “elsewhere”… you may find the following interesting, Gentle Reader. Or not. But here it is:

Baby It’s Cold Outside…

……as one of my favorite Christmas songs goes, but we can’t say we weren’t warned. Like our up to the minute 24 hour news channels, we were bombarded with warnings, alerts, and pager updates for days prior to the arrival of an Arctic Clipper last week. Let me tell you, we’ve seen worse. I understand we were one of the more fortunate ones, though, because we received very little snow. We did, however, get the 30 below on the thermometer and 52 below wind chill temperatures so we didn’t go completely unscathed and after five days we just went above zero for about a minute today. Like I said, we’ve seen worse, but it seemed unusual enough to fill air time on the national news. It is funny to hear and read others reactions to our weather which we know is just part of our way of life here in “the North Country”.

I was invited to join the Fortuna Air Force Station group site (ed: I added this link) on the internet some time ago and have watched with interest the many comments and memories this weather has conjured up for these once young service men and women who I’m quite sure wondered, at times, if they hadn’t been shipped to Siberia rather than northwest North Dakota . Apparently our current winter has nothing on the winter of 1961-62. Here are a few quotes recently posted on the Fortuna Air Force Station site in regards to that memorable winter:

“In the winter of 61-62 it got down to -52, colder than I saw it in Alaska -30. Louis Able who worked in the power plant left for his home in Westby at 2400, at 0200 his wife called and informed us he hadn't made it home. I got the GSA 1 ton and called Sgt Melcher in Westby, Melcher headed east found him just before we got to his car (Mercury Marauder convertible) Able only had his field jacket with him. He never could follow orders. We had our parka and snow pants and a comforter we were to take with us when we went off base. We were supposed to take food and gas too. It was probably the same in later years.”
Don Luther
EPPT 61-62

That’s from the Westby Border News… in Westby, Montana… and there’s more about the weather at the quoted piece’s title link. Long-time readers may remember I lived up in Westby once upon a time, for about seven or eight months (prior to that I lived in Plentywood for a couple o’ few months, which is about 30 miles west of Westby). And yeah: I was firmly convinced that Siberia has NOTHING on Westby and environs when it comes to “cold.” I have never experienced cold like I experienced up there… before or since.

And I hope I never, ever experience it again.

The pic is a re-re-run and is my absolute favorite Fortuna photo. But it wasn't always like this... summers were a lot o' fun (scroll to the very bottom of the linked page).