sober second thought

Brrrrr ...

It's cold in Ottawa this week, no doubt about that. You know it's a cold day when the weather forecast lists a high of -25. Yesterday the windchill-aided temperature dipped below -40 degrees Celcius. Yes, we take our weather seriously here, although we usually prefer not to take it this seriously until January. The sudden cold didn't stop anyone from going about their business, of course, although there was the usual frostbite warning:

"Bitterly cold Arctic air giving wind chills of minus 30 to minus 40 this morning. [...] Because of these high wind chills frostbite can occur on exposed skin in a short period of time."

Those of you living in the U.S. should brace for some of those nasty cold fronts we're always allegedly sending down your way.

Someone at work remarked that it would be handy if Environment Canada's weather forecast had a metric for the risk that beer left in the garage would freeze overnight. That got me thinking about other useful information that MSC could provide as part of its regular weather forecast:

• Length of time it will probably take for your car to start in the morning [numeric; number of minutes, seconds]
  
  
• Risk factor for licking a metallic pole [ordinal categories representing level of risk, ranging from low risk ("Mmmm... metal!") to high risk ("Ma tongue ith thtuck to thith poe")]
  
  
• Likelihood that, objectively speaking, your house would make a better home for penguins than humans today [numeric; percentage]
  
  
• Likelihood that cold temperatures will addle the brains of federal politicians in Ottawa, impairing their ability to make decisions in the public interest [numeric; percentage]
  
  
• Distance from your office building your co-workers are willing to venture for lunch [numeric; metres or possibly centimetres]
  
  
• Number of times you are likely to curse and/or speak wistfully of warmer climates while snow-shovelling/hanging Christmas lights outside/scraping the car/etc. [numeric]
  
  
• Likelihood that you will immediately follow up such wistful thoughts with a nervous laugh and a bold assertion of Canadian hardiness and how much you enjoy the winter [numeric; percentage; always high]
  
  
• Likelihood that your iPod batteries will drain before a complete run-through of "Stairway to Heaven," including that bit at the end where it speeds up and you never knew for sure whether to just keep slow-dancing or what ... [numeric; percentage]

Any other suggestions?

Posted by anatole at December 21, 2004 10:43 PM