Cold Weather? It's Snow Problem!!

It’s practically a tradition for students across the Midwest to persistently check the forecast for any glimmer of days off of school for winter weather. In the days before January 28th, 2019 we were optimistic that we might get a few days off, but didn’t get our hopes up too much because just the week before our school district had pushed on through a dangerous amount of snow. Nevertheless, we checked the superintendent’s Twitter obsessively, waiting for an announcement (and admittedly tried to bully him into cancelling school). We ended up getting three days off in one week- Monday due to snow and Wednesday and Thursday due to the polar vortex.

One of the many memes that flooded Twitter before and during the polar vortex. [For reference Dan Bridges is the superintendent of School District 203]

According to the National Weather Service, polar vortex is a large area of low pressure and cold that surrounds the Earth’s poles. This area always exists, shrinking in the summer and in times where it reaches all the way to the Chicago area, expanding. At these times, the cold, Arctic air is picked up by the jet stream and brought southward, creating the extreme weather conditions we experience.

It was really cold. Although in my hometown, Naperville, they somehow forgot to take an official temperature, in an article from the Naperville Sun, they reported a low of 23 degrees below zero recorded at O’Hare International Airport, 30 minutes away from my house. They estimated that with wind chill, temperatures could have reached -47℉ in Naperville. An elevator in a parking garage couldn't handle the cold and just stopped working until it warmed up!

Because I’m lucky enough to have a safe and warm place to stay, polar vortexes are usually super exciting. We get a couple of days off of school and are stuck inside, which leads to a lot of fun memories with family. Especially living in Minnesota now, polar vortexes aren’t really that unusual, but what was really special for me was messing around with the extreme cold. I spent most of our two days inside brainstorming different activities that would be fun to do at 30 degrees below zero.

One of the most popular things to do in extreme cold weather is to throw boiling water in the air, and I was so excited to be able to do it. It was a little scary because I had to be sure to throw the water away from me so boiling water wouldn’t fall back on me, but most of the water almost immediately froze into snow upon contact with the air. Later that night, my dad and I headed out to the garage to freeze bubbles. We blew them onto the car and they promptly hardened and looked like literal bubble wrap. The last thing I did was freeze a t-shirt. I wet the entire shirt and then hung it outside on a hanger and within about 15 minutes it was solid. I felt like a wizard holding my frozen shirt upside down and defying gravity. 

Throwing boiling water into the air!

Frozen bubbles on the car!

Me and my frozen shirt!

Extreme winter weather is very dangerous, but I’m so thankful to have been able to do so many cool things safely from my home! 

References:

Hegarty, Erin. “Bitter Cold Brings Much of Naperville to a Halt Wednesday and Thursday, but It Will Feel like Spring Come Monday.” Naperville Sun, 31 Jan. 2019.

US Department of Commerce, NOAA. “What Is the Polar Vortex?” National Weather Service, NOAA's National Weather Service, 27 Mar. 2018, www.weather.gov/safety/cold-polar-vortex.