100 degrees F

You may have noticed that I didn’t have much to say from last Saturday to Wednesday; this is because we had gone to San Antonio for my wife to attend the AAD conference. It was unbelievably gorgeous Texas ill country weather down there. I spent 9 years in Houston, recall, and there February was indeed pleasant, but San Antonio has all of that without the humidity. It went as high as 85 degrees, which was ideal for the Riverwalk or the Zoo. We even had to use sunscreen (my wife is a dermatologist after all).

Today, in Marshfield WI, it’s 15 degrees Farenheit. Below zero. And still dropping.

It occurs to me that the inverse scenario, comparing temperatures in summer, would not have nearly the same delta. Now, I know that in Houston we had the occasional 100+ degree day, but a more rigorous analysis should really use monthly averages. For Houston, the coldest month is January (41.2 F overnight) and warmest is July (93.6 F daytime). In San Antonio, its January (38.6 F) and August (94.7 F). I couldn’t find comparable data for Marshfield, but for Madison the coldest month is January (9.3 F) and warmest is July (82.1 F).

So, just using these average monthly temperatures, we see that the delta in winter is about 30 degrees whereas the delta in summer is about 12 degrees. Obviously, my perceived delta was much higher because the daily temperature is far more variable than the average, but even so it’s intriguing that even with average temperatures, the delta is about 3x higher in winter than in summer.

Is there a point to any of this? I have no idea. In other news, starving people tend to think about food a lot.

And there’s no way I’m shoveling the driveway today. I’d rather do it midweek at 5am than go out there right now.