This looks a little like Mars. It’s actually Hibbing Taconite, which was for a time colder than Mars.
It’s cold in northern Minnesota.
How cold is it? It is reported that temperatures in Duluth and surrounding region of northern Minnesota have been colder than Mars this week, according to reports from NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on the Red Planet.
Embarrass and International Falls were both under 40 below (F) Thursday night, while the Mars rover reported a mere 26 below. Temperatures at least that cold are forecast for Sunday and Monday.
In other words, a planet 140 million miles further from the Sun than Earth was warmer than parts of northern Minnesota last night. Granted, there are caveats. The Mars rover is close to the Martian equator right now. (The average temperature on Mars is 80 below, Fahrenheit). Still, there it is.
It’s going to be a little warmer today — perhaps even above zero. Then another week-long cold snap is expected, making us once again colder than Mars.
Worried about how to survive the cold? I wrote about that last month.
UPDATE: Martian cold is apparently enough to cancel all Minnesota schools on Monday, Jan. 6. Gov. Mark Dayton issued the order late this morning. But, as David in the comments section points out, it’s all relative. Up in Winnipeg they’ve had -58 for a spell with no cancellations. At least we can all agree that people on the East Coast are wimps, right?
UPDATE 2: The Canadians have arrived to pour very, very cold water all over the Mars story. Technically, we will be colder than Mars this weekend. But Mars is all over the place. Mars climate rules are different.
-40F? that’s cute… Come to Canada where -58F just happened for a few day span, the past week, in Winnipeg.
No closed schools, no canceled work days, nothing.
Y’all should move to Mars.
You act as though you were sunbathing outside in that weather. What a man. I wish I could be from Manada, where men don’t need heat. I think we can agree that when 40 some degrees below zero is concerned, 18 degrees difference is barely different. You know what it is though? Damn cold. Everyone agrees on that.
Nice try. -58? Where? Not near Winnipeg according to weather stations.
Wind chill maybe?
Why not compare the actual temp?
If then, we smoked you.
And we’re getting close to -65 w windchill Sun-Mon…
Go to Accuweather and compare Winnipeg to Embarrass Mn for the past week.
OK. We’ll just say we had 78 below….
Nice try…
From 12/29-1/7, half obviously prredicted….
Mn was colder 6 of 10 times. Although, I admit, it was fairly close.
With all due respect, Winnipeg may be a cold place but it did not experience anything colder than -37.9C (36.2F) in the last 30 days according to the Canadian government (Environment Canada). The polar vortex responsible for some of the coldest air in the northern hemisphere will be centered right over northern Minnesota for the next few days. Unfortunately, Winnipeg will be too far west of this high pressure area to experience anything quite as cold as Minnesota will.
Minnesota has what…300 or so school districts, school boards & superintendents covering 87,000 square miles? Are they not capable of making the call whether or not to close their schools? Hmmm, I wonder if BO will decide to call off school nation wide??
You made me curious, so I checked. There are 2,905 school districts in Minnesota.
Really? That sounds impossible…
Where did you see that?
Either way-
I think its a good way to deal with this. Otherwise you wait till 6 am Mon Morning till you find out.
Much easier to plan this way….
Here’s some science in response to this. http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2014/01/canada-as-cold-as-mars-not-quite-eh.html
Gov Dayton took your advice. No school anywhere in the state on Monday.
I heard it’s supposed to be really cold on March 4, so we should just go ahead and cancel school now.