Yesterday was certainly an interesting day. Not only did NASA announce the strongest evidence yet that there might be microbial life on Mars, it was also the first time I celebrated my birthday outside the Netherlands. In many parts of the US, it was the coldest day in thirty or so years. The highest temperature reached in Granville was -13 °C (9 °F), making it my coldest birthday ever. (From what I can find in Dutch weather archives, the former record holder was 1985 with a relatively balmy daily high of -8 °C. My warmest birthday so far was in 1993, when thermometers reached 13 °C.) And then there was the crash landing on the Hudson River yesterday: the first time ever that an underwing-engined commercial airliner landed on water without any fatalities. Truly astonishing!

Oh, and if you think yesterday was cold, it’s even more so today. Walking up to the university this morning, it was -25 °C (-13 °F). That’s the sort of weather that makes you feel glad mankind invented clothes.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 15:01 and is filed under Life, Weather. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.