Yeh, it’s cold here in Edmonton. Some would say unbearably cold. But if it was really “unbearable”, wouldn’t everyone leave?
Some like to compare the city to the ice planet of Hoth when it gets like this. Fair enough, so I did a little digging. Turns out the average nighttime low on Hoth was -60C, which Edmonton’s never reached. You’d have to go into the Arctic circle to register that kind of temperature. However, their daytime high is pegged at -32C. That’s certainly reached a number of times most winters. In fact, at lunchtime here in Edmonton we’re still hovering at the -30C mark, with the mercury encapsulated in a one degree range since 11pm last night. So yeh, the days can definitely be compared to Hoth.
Now, to be fair, we all know that on any planet there are ranges of temperatures, so there’s probably not ONE high and one low temperature for Hoth. Then again, based on my basic knowledge of astronomy, how they describe its solar system would also leave one to think it would be a hell of a lot colder there than is indicated by those temperatures too.
Be that as it may, I was also reading up on another location much closer to us than Hoth (well, and a place that actually exists too) – over in Russia, a village called Oymakon. They hit a low of -90 in February 1933 (Yes, NINETY, that’s not a typo). It IS the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth. There the only school closes only if temperatures drop below -61; and residents leave their cars running ALL DAY. For those of you that don’t live in winter climates, the very idea of plugging cars in like we have to when it gets to these temperatures probably just seems bizarre, but just imagine having to leave your vehicle running all the time?
