I woke up this morning to the clock radio; the morning guy was giving a quick rundown of the weather before playing the next song and he finished by saying, "Currently, the temperature is minus 17 degrees." I thought that surely I must have misheard. After all, I thought the overnight temperatures were supposed to hover right around the high temp for the previous day (1 degree) before starting to slowly climb to 12 degrees once daylight hit.

I went downstairs, immediately noticed how chilly it was inside, got the coffee started, and turned on the TV to The Weather Channel. They quickly dispelled any doubts I still had about the temperature outside. Air temperature of -17 degrees. Thankfully the winds had stopped, at least, so there was no lower windchill to worry about. Our poor furnace couldn't keep up with the arctic temperatures. We had it turned all the way up all night long, and the temperature on our main floor when I got up was around 65 degrees. I turned the oven on and opened the oven door for awhile to help get the place warmed up a little bit. Unorthodox, perhaps, but it certainly helped!

Almost two hours later as I was getting ready for work I checked the temperature again. -18 degrees! What?! It's going in the wrong direction!!!

The temperature did eventually start to slowly climb, but you couldn't really tell without a thermometer.

That was definitely the coldest temperature I remember ever experiencing. I've been in windchills that low before on occasion, but not actual air temperatures. Suffice it to say that I'm now more convinced than ever that Alaska is not a place I ever want to call home.

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