Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The winter hasn't (annoyingly) actually come.

I hold out hope that winter will actually come; a real winter that dips the thermometer down to the single digits (in Fahrenheit, of course; double negative digits in Centigrade). A winter with snow, dry air, and (if I can wish) clear, bright, and frigid days. You know what I'm talking about: winter in Michigan.

I'm not asking for huge amounts of snow. (In fact, I would prefer not to have too much of it, since it makes cycling to the campus difficult.) I am, though, hoping - as the well-above-average-temperature days tick past - for cold enough weather to actually call these months "winter". As it is, 30 of the past 40 days of winter (counting back to the Winter Solstice) have been above the average temperature range, while only two have been below the average temperature range. In other words, 75% of the days this winter season have been above average, while 5% have been below average, leaving 20% within the average range of temperature. Furthermore, 25 of the above-average-temperature days or have been above freezing, and 15 of these days were above 40F (~4.4C). In other words, 62.5% of the winter days have so far been above freezing and 37.5% of the winter days have so far been above 40F!

My point is that this year's weather can't really be called "winter" for Ann Arbor... at least not in the sense of how it feels. It can technically be classified as on the warm edge of what a winter for this area might feel like, but I would suggest that even this would be a difficult stretch to make.

At least it isn't raining right now... At least the sun is shining and melting the snow (hopefully clearing it all up before any ice forms on the roads).

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