Althouse: Brisk.

January 23, 2026

Brisk.

65 comments:

Lawnerd said...: That’s warm. -26 up here in the north woods of Wisconsin.; 1/23/26, 5:04 AM
Lawnerd said...: I had to go outside in my PJs about an hour ago to get firewood. Wasn’t that bad.; 1/23/26, 5:05 AM
Lawnerd said...: We are considering moving to the Villages in Florida. My wife just informed me that there is a 90 degree temp difference between here and there.; 1/23/26, 5:06 AM
Political Junkie said...: Yikes.; 1/23/26, 5:08 AM
gilbar said...: -19 here in West Union.. supposed to bottom out at -20; 1/23/26, 5:13 AM
gilbar said...: i'm using this opprotunity, to slow cook a rump roast.
i put it in my Grandma's cast iron dutch oven (it's about a 100 years old), and put the dutch oven in the regular oven at 275 degrees.
We'll see how it's doing in 5 or 6 hours; 1/23/26, 5:17 AM
RMc said...: This just in: It gets cold in Wisconsin in the winter.; 1/23/26, 5:25 AM
Jaq said...: Oops, The electric powered bus don't like the cold.; 1/23/26, 5:28 AM
Jaq said...: EV range drops with the temps. At -22F it may not start. Canadians who love their EVs? They have heated garages, not sure what the carbon footprint of that is.; 1/23/26, 5:31 AM
gilbar said...: just hit -20 here, if it's going to be cold..
might as well be COLD; 1/23/26, 5:46 AM
gilbar said...: RMc said...
..This just in: It gets cold in Wisconsin in the winter..

but wasn't "global warming" supposed to fix this?
WHAT THE HELL was the point of all of our CO2, If it's STILL gonna be COLD?; 1/23/26, 5:47 AM
tim maguire said...: The front must be heading east—you’re about a day ahead of us. I was thinking while walking my dog this morning that, the next time the temperature is what it is now, it will be comfortable.; 1/23/26, 5:58 AM
Humperdink said...: Yeah really, where’s that global warming when you need it. If you ask the climate weenies about this record cold snap, they will tell you without missing a beat this record cold is the result of man (and woman) caused global warming.; 1/23/26, 5:58 AM
Big Mike said...: Ah, but do you have 30” of snow predicted for this weekend the way we in the northern part of the Shenandoah Valley do? It’s predicted to start around 10:00 pm tomorrow and end in the early hours of Monday morning. Good thing I had the snow blower serviced back before Thanksgiving, but the height and width of the bucket is only 18” high by 22” wide so I’ll need to go out while it’s still coming down.; 1/23/26, 6:00 AM
tim maguire said...: My neighbor bought a heat pump over the summer and had a party to mark the removal of his natural gas meter (they cut a hole in the sidewalk when they shut off the pipe and didn’t fix it properly so we now have an asphalt hump in the middle of the cement sidewalk).

I’m thinking of checking in on him this weekend to see how he’s doing.; 1/23/26, 6:02 AM
Big Mike said...: It seems obvious to me that this record cold is because we’ve removed too much CO2 from the air. We need to add tons of CO2, preferably by burning down the universities where climate alarmists work, and perhaps the climate alarmists themselves while we’re at it.; 1/23/26, 6:04 AM
John henry said...: 80 degrees here in Fajardo where Atlantic and Caribbean meet.

But with the wind hill it feels like 79.

Thats american Fahrenheit, not those wussy Euro degrees

John Henry; 1/23/26, 6:22 AM
Christopher B said...: That's one way to put it. ;-)

My weather app shows a forecast low of 0 here on Tuesday morning. People will be losing their minds.; 1/23/26, 6:25 AM
Mr. D said...: -22 in the Twin Cities. And all the ICE you'd want.; 1/23/26, 6:32 AM
imTay said...: I have heat pumps, but I kept the oil heat backup because I am not an idiot. I only got the heat pumps for central air, but in moderately cold temperatures, they work fine and save energy.

The story about hard disconnecting the NG is a textbook example of the madness and stupidity of “thinking” based on identity rather than applied logic.; 1/23/26, 6:48 AM
imTay said...: The other advantage is that a backup generator only needs to power the controller on the oil heat, rather than produce enough electricity to heat the home. There was an ice storm here in. ‘96 that caused a weeks long power outage in deep winter, you can still see, after a fresh snow, how the young trees were permanently bent over into arches by it. My next door neighbor had a generator that attached to the rear PTO of his tractor and he was a local hero for that.; 1/23/26, 6:58 AM
Curious George said...: "gilbar said...
i'm using this opprotunity, to slow cook a rump roast.
i put it in my Grandma's cast iron dutch oven (it's about a 100 years old),"

Is that safe to eat?; 1/23/26, 7:11 AM
tcrosse said...: Sometimes I get nostalgic for life in St Paul. This is not one of them.; 1/23/26, 7:17 AM
MOfarmer said...: w
We had a heat pump put in this summer as a back-up for our 2 wood stoves and so we could air condition the back part of the house ( no ductwork). It is 7 here and I turned on the pump when I got up and it is putting out some nice heat. There must be some electric coils in there they don't mention in the info.; 1/23/26, 7:26 AM
Ann Althouse said...: We went out!; 1/23/26, 7:53 AM
Beasts of England said...: ’My neighbor bought a heat pump over the summer and had a party to mark the removal of his natural gas…’

I hope he enjoys never being warm. Morons need to endure the pain of their choices - now more than ever…; 1/23/26, 7:56 AM
Beasts of England said...: ’We went out!’

Like, outside? By choice? :); 1/23/26, 7:57 AM
pacwest said...: "We went out!"

Fucking Brrr!; 1/23/26, 8:15 AM
Just an old country lawyer said...: The comments on this thread are reading like Penthouse Letters for cold weather freaks. Here in north Georgia we're expecting up to an inch of ice, and everybody is going batshit crazy. The grocery stores have been sold out of milk, bread, snacks and beer for several days.
An inch of ice is more treacherous than a foot of snow because it pulls down trees and powerlines and is impossible to drive on. We will likely lose power for a day or two.
Any of our relatives who we could go stay with also live in the storm zone, so I suggested to the bride that we drive to New Orleans today and wait out the storm in a warm hotel surrounded by the best food in the country. But no. She has experienced a lot of snow from growing up in the mid-Appalachians and living in NYC for 25 years, but "I've never seen a bad ice storm before." I'm afraid she's about to see one good and hard. Stay safe and warm, friends!; 1/23/26, 8:16 AM
Leland said...: We just emptied our refrigerator. It is Friday, trash day. I heard the store shelves are bare but not worried. It is nice having a son-in-law that drives the grocery delivery truck, so we know when fresh supplies are coming in. Besides, what matters in events like this is what is in the pantry, not the fridge.; 1/23/26, 8:21 AM
Beasts of England said...: ’The grocery stores have been sold out of milk, bread, snacks and beer for several days.’

The grocery stores here in north Alabama started being emptied on Tuesday, because the White Bread Industrial Complex spun up the locals, re: Snowmageddon. I’m not sure how bad it’ll get, but Monday will likely be impassable due to ice…; 1/23/26, 8:29 AM
Peachy said...: 9 here.; 1/23/26, 8:33 AM
Original Mike said...: "We went out!"

Me too. Had to get the paper.; 1/23/26, 8:37 AM
buwaya said...: I like traveling; but I dont feel a need to travel to Wisconsin.; 1/23/26, 8:39 AM
Tina848 said...: Does -15 feel a whole lot different than -31? It is really cold and frigid, either way; 1/23/26, 8:50 AM
Original Mike said...: "I like traveling; but I dont feel a need to travel to Wisconsin."

Works for me.; 1/23/26, 8:50 AM
Humperdink said...: I produce my own natural gas from my shallow oil wells. The gas pressure slowly declines over time. In anticipation of this onslaught of cold weather, on Tuesday I pumped the wells to boost the natural gas pressure.

Several years ago I installed a propane furnace as backup. Only used it sporadically. I had the propane tank filled yesterday. Cost of propane? $2.79/ gallon … Thanks Trump.; 1/23/26, 8:51 AM
hawkeyedjb said...: tim maguire said...
"My neighbor bought a heat pump over the summer..."

I have a heat pump and it works just dandy. But then, I'm in Phoenix and I use it to heat the house from 68 to 72 degrees.; 1/23/26, 8:52 AM
Peachy said...: I feel bad for the penned up horses.; 1/23/26, 8:57 AM
imTay said...: The coldest I ever experienced was-28F, walking my dog for five minutes and my face hurt for nearly a day, no such reaction to-15F.; 1/23/26, 9:00 AM
imTay said...: I have voluntarily ice fished at a wind-still -10.; 1/23/26, 9:01 AM
imTay said...: -28 was too cold for my black Lab.; 1/23/26, 9:02 AM
wendybar said...: Larry Behrens 🇺🇸
@larrybehrens
·
18h
Question: How well do solar panels and wind turbines when there's an ice storm? Asking for a few million Americans.

Thank goodness for fossil fuels.
https://x.com/larrybehrens/status/2014443392772579681?s=20; 1/23/26, 9:29 AM
Fred Drinkwater said...: Ha! In my family, the canonical temperatures are hot, warm, cool, cold, freezing, harsh, and "Refreshingly brisk!"; 1/23/26, 10:00 AM
Fred Drinkwater said...: I live where I do, because my parents, of hardy upper tier stock, spent a few winters in San Diego during the Korean war. After that, they were not going back.; 1/23/26, 10:05 AM
Iman said...: “COLD, COLD, COLD
COLD, COLD, COLD
Freezing, it was freezing cold in that hotel
I had no money, my special friend was gone
The TV set was busted so she went along
I called room… room service,
I'm down here on my knees
For a peach or a pear, or a coconut please,
But they was cold
So cold!”; 1/23/26, 10:08 AM
MadisonMan said...: @BigMike, this is not record cold.

I walked about 2.5 miles this morning -- with two stops during -- and it wasn't too bad. My hands did get cold. It's not the cold that gets you, it's improper clothing. Scarves are a marvelous thing.; 1/23/26, 10:11 AM
Fred Drinkwater said...: My father used to visit such fine places as Fort Churchill on Hudson's Bay, Nome, Alaska, and Punta Arenas, Chile. They routinely carried survival gear good for -40, and needed it. The plane didn't mind the cold, its natural environment, but the snow and ice and the damn static electricity were serious problems.; 1/23/26, 10:13 AM
Lazarus said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/23/26, 10:16 AM
Lazarus said...: Cencenheit or Fahrengrade?; 1/23/26, 10:17 AM
Marcus Bressler said...: Heating your home in South Florida. Two truths: During the first real cold spell of the year, people turn on their reverse cycle (heat pump) AC and discover either 1. it doesn't work or 2. just how much dust in the air blower needs to burn off because you can smell it. Decades ago, I lived in a poorly-insulated attic apartment but waterfront to the bluest water in the area. In the early 2000s we had a prolonged cold spell of weather in the mornings with 30-40 degree temps. All I had was a single space heater. It was set up next to my bed at night. When my alarm rang, I jumped out of bed, put on my bathrobe, unplugged the heater and replugged it in an outlet in the bathroom and turned on the shower to get the water hot. I rushed back under the covers for almost five minutes until I made the dreaded trot to the shower of Hell. When I finished my shower, I turned off the water, dried off quickly, unplugged the space heater and plugged it back in next to the bed again, got under the covers until I was ready to shave and brush my teeth. Brutal two periods of time for this, about five days each.; 1/23/26, 10:23 AM
gilbar said...: Tina848 said...
Does -15 feel a whole lot different than -31?

oh GOD Yes!
there's a BIG change about -20 where it goes from being horrible, to being DEADLY.. and Quickly

back in the '80s, it got down to -25 or such (it was a record for Story County); so, OF COURSE, i HAD TO go out and try it.
i put on long undies, snow pants, 2 coats scarf faskmask and hat.
And went out.. It was like walking on the moon! i felt Completely disconnected from the enviroment. Stayed out was about 7 minutes, came in; disrobed.. and started shivering for the next hour while laying under the covers.

at -21, bare skin dies real quick.; 1/23/26, 10:32 AM
bagoh20 said...: The calming knowledge that if you accidently wander outside in your sleep or dementia, you will be dead in minutes. I've heard it's a great way to go.; 1/23/26, 10:37 AM
Humperdink said...: During these cold snaps my wife and I put our PJ’s under the electric blanket 1/2 hour before we got to bed.; 1/23/26, 11:37 AM
EAB said...: When it was 8 degrees here last night, I laughed that the local brewery/pizza place had their outdoor fire pits going. No one sitting outside. My guess is they’re not on today…too dangerous at -9 now but who knows... At -15 this morning, I was fascinated to see our little red squirrel out as usual. And the deer moving about in our woods.; 1/23/26, 11:38 AM
Iman said...: Stay frosty!; 1/23/26, 12:05 PM
Big Mike said...: @MadMan, yes, I was exaggerating. Single digits Fahrenheit is still 20+ degrees above the record low for late January in nearby Winchester, but by normal standards in Virginia, even in midwinter, this is pretty damned cold!

So enjoy your walks, and when you’re feeling nicely invigorated you can come out here to the Shenandoah Valley and help me clear thirty (predicted) inches of snow from my sidewalk and drive.; 1/23/26, 12:27 PM
Temujin said...: 80 and sunny with clear blue skies here in Sarasota. Just sayin'. This is why people come here Jan-Mar. You could too. And you could get up early to walk alongside the Gulf. Or better yet, go late and get some amazing sunset photos.

This is our best time of year. Come summer, when the rest of you are loving life, we'll be melting into the pavement.; 1/23/26, 1:11 PM
bagoh20 said...: There are fish under that ice. There are deer laying in the snow all night. We sit next to the fire and watch TV with hot chocolate. Tell me we don't deserve dominion over those dummies outside. And it wasn't easy getting here either.; 1/23/26, 1:30 PM
Clyde said...: I see the idiot Minneapolis protesters out walking around right now in -10 degree temperatures. I hope they get frostbite.; 1/23/26, 2:44 PM
Tomcc said...: I lived in Fairbanks for a few years and it would get to minus 20 frequently and minus 30 or 40 on occasion. Dangerous and really unpleasant to be outside. I looked at the weather there today and it's 2 degrees, but feels like 8!; 1/23/26, 3:55 PM
Rustygrommet said...: Humperdink said...
"I produce my own natural gas from my shallow oil wells."

I thought you were talking about something else. Nevermind.; 1/23/26, 4:19 PM
Jim at said...: Makes me miss the two winters I spent in Bismarck.

Or not ...; 1/23/26, 5:17 PM
Jim at said...: Does -15 feel a whole lot different than -31?

Most definitely.; 1/23/26, 5:22 PM
Marcus Bressler said...: Once, on a chilly SoFla morning, before the FWB stepped out of the shower, I put a big fluffy towel in the dryer. When I heard the water turn off, I grabbed the hot towel and presented it to her. She was eternally grateful. Which for her, is about a day.; 1/23/26, 9:38 PM