The Minneapolis St. Paul area has no temperature at all today.

[MineralMan]

It will be zero degrees all day here. The big cold dump from the far north has affected much of the nation, causing uncountable numbers of car crashes, forcing record numbers of homeless people into shelters, and killing a number of people. For those of us with working furnaces and homes that are comfortably warm, it's easy to ignore the outside temperature.

For many others, including everyone who has to go to their job, and so many people who do not have adequate shelter and heat, this stretch of cold weather is a genuine weather disaster. My wife and I made a donation of over 100 parkas to a local shelter a couple of weeks ago. I collect them and launder them throughout the year, finding them at garage sales and other locations as I drive around the Twin Cities area. Usually, when I tell the person holding the sale what I plan to do with them, they just give them to me. We clean them, store them, and make a donation to the Union Gospel Mission each year, hoping that those warm clothes will help someone survive our frigid winters.

If you have old winter jackets and other clothing, I encourage you to donate them to your local shelter if you live anywhere where the temperatures fall to dangerous levels. It could save a life.

For those living in warmer parts of the United States, monetary donations to shelters in places you have lived or where you know people will also be a big help.

Thanks for keeping people warm.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Kelvin?

Impressive!

[MineralMan]

4. Not Kelvin. Just a figure of speech.

My 89 year old mother always asks me, when I report that it's zero degrees, "How can there be no temperature?" She gets it, but it's her way of saying that she can't even imagine it being that cold. She's lived in California and Arizona all her life.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. I know, I was just having a little fun.

Here in Boston, I've been known to use the same turn of phrase.

[MineralMan]

9. I knew you were. No problem.

[snooper2]

22. Sorry for the news, but did you see Warren isn't running?

FYI-

[librechik]

2. In Denver, i feel your pain--5 days below 0--pipes froze

fortunately no break.

This is serious folks. Two days to go before 30s.

[MineralMan]

8. I opened up the heat register in the furnace room, which

is usually closed, to help keep the pipes from freezing. That'll handle it. We've had -20 degrees here, and that's what I always do. You wouldn't think that you'd need heat in your furnace room, but today's high-efficiency furnaces don't make much heat right around them. So, there's a heat register in there. Brrr...

[FarCenter]

20. IIRC, pipes in MN should be buried 6 feet below grade. 0 Farenheit is 255.372 degrees Kelvin

Don't you feel warmer already.

[MineralMan]

26. They are. In fact, my outdoor pipes are 8' deep.

But, we have an outdoor faucet just outside of the furnace room in the basement. Keeping the pipe leading to it warm prevents freezing. Otherwise there are no issues, and it's never frozen up anyhow.

[Systematic Chaos]

3. The low 20s in Vegas are extremely rare in February, let alone early December.

And we've got enough homeless people to create their own good-sized town.

I don't know how they'll survive tonight, given that there are probably only enough shelter beds for 20% of them. Families with children and everything.

[MineralMan]

6. It's a huge problem in places where it rarely gets dangerously cold.

Here, there are overflow shelters in churches and other places to handle extremes of cold weather. Even those are bursting at the seams right now.

[Art_from_Ark]

32. I've heard that there is a large community of homeless people

literally living underground in Vegas.

[Fumesucker]

5. K&R

[MineralMan]

10. Thanks, Fumesucker! nt

[rurallib]

11. Time to invade Canada and force them to keep their

Canadian highs at home under control! Enough is enough.

I was in Canada for meetings one January (who thought that was a good idea I will never know). The temperature was -40. So I thought I was pretty funny saying "I don't know if that is Fahrenheit or Celsius." Everybody looked at me like I was an idiot

[HereSince1628]

13. Most people don't get that convergence of scale thingy

[MineralMan]

14. Good line! I suspect that very few people know that

-40 is the same in both measurement systems. I hope never to enjoy that level of cold.

[Jenoch]

21. When I was in college at St. Cloud

in the 80s I remember one day when it was -41° in December. There was not a breath of a breeze. My car, parked on the street, actually started. Four days later. when it was time to go home for Christmas break, it would not start. The highs that week were in the minus teens.

[MineralMan]

27. Those are truly ugly temperatures!

[Jenoch]

28. I remember when I was a youth

in the 70s and into the early 80s we would regularly get lows into the minus 30s, not including windchill. In the summer, the temps would hit 100 a few times a year. I guess that's why the prairie, with no trees and plenty of wind, was the last part of the continental U.S. to be settled.

[laundry_queen]

19. LOL sounds like we have the same sense of humor

For the record, unless you live pretty far north -40 in January is cold even for most places in Canada. We were nearly -40 last week (-48C with the windchill) and we broke some records (I'm in Edmonton). I've actually found winters to be way colder now than they were when I was growing up in the 80's. I have lived up north too so I know what a cold winter is like (think a month of -45C without counting the windchill. Oh, and 10 feet of snow too).

I'm LOL'ing though at whoever thought a meeting in Canada in January was a good idea. I think most companies here with head offices in the US book meetings as far away from the cold as possible. My mom used to work for a company headed in San Antonio. Guess where they went every Jan/Feb? LOL.

[HereSince1628]

12. Take it from this guy who knows something about bullshit and the cold...re levels of measurement

Jokes with zero ratings have no humor...

Minnesota with a zero temp in late Autumn is seasonable.

[MineralMan]

15. Sort of. Our current cold snap is the first

of this duration since the 1970s. Typically, our zero and sub-zero temperatures are more common in January. Mine is not a humorous post, in any case.

[HereSince1628]

16. I lived up in "Burr"midji. I know plenty about Minnesota weather.

[Aerows]

23. I feel sorry for that poor cow

Poor thing should be in a nice warm barn.

[HereSince1628]

24. That's burger on the hoof. All beef should be kept refrigerated until consumption!

[Aerows]

25. It certainly is refrigerated!

[seveneyes]

17. causing uncountable numbers of car crashes

Apologies in advance for correcting this misnomer...the failure of people to adjust their driving to the dangerous conditions contributes the most to these crashes. Too many drivers do not slow down when their slice of traction pie is reduced.

[MineralMan]

18. Yes, of course. On the other hand,

people who do drive properly still get into accidents caused by drivers who do not drive appropriately. The number of accidents is still very large, and is directly related to the weather conditions.

[shenmue]

29. Is this a Dr. Who episode?

I thought you meant the thermometers refused to work because of some anomaly.

Keep warm out there, everybody!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

30. All molecular motion stops.

At least mine and my cats' have, pretty much. Not going anywhere today.

[MineralMan]

31. I'm finishing up a website content contract, so I'm not

leaving the house today, either. My wife's out in the car now. Streets are like a sheet of ice. You have to start stopping before you start going to drive safely today. Fortunately, my wife's good at it, and knows the back ways to everywhere. It's the other cars and drivers you have to worry about when streets are like they are right now.

Sucks.

On Friday, I'm heading to California to visit my 89-year-old parents. The warmth will be nice, but my poor parents get more and more frail every month. I'm sort of dreading the visit.