Is it cold? Snow way...

Lunch out? Not unless you want snow balls...

I’ve got a confession to make. 

Lean in a bit, because I’m going to whisper it. Bit more. Did you have curry for tea? OK, good.

I’m a weather nerd. There, I said it. When I was growing up, I didn’t want to be an astronaut or a fireman – I wanted to present the weather on the TV. I was lining myself up for a career at the Met Office when, at about 18 years of age, I discovered I was allergic to studying.

Anyway, despite a jam-packed and varied career over the subsequent years, I still have a fascination for the world of meteorology. I even have one of those clocks that projects the time and the external temperature onto the ceiling at night, so I can see how cold it is outside whilst lying awake worrying that I might have wasted my life and been more successful with girls if I’d been more into cars than clouds.

So far this year, I’ve gazed at a chilly reading of -5C a couple of times, and been grateful for previous sensible choices on duvet TOG ratings.

My local weather station (bookmarked on my laptop, obviously) reckons there was a -6C in the last year, and I remember seeing a -10C once whilst out in the car a couple of years ago.

It’s been a chilly old week too, with temperatures generally not much above freezing and some (disappointing, if I’m honest) snow here and there.

Still, try and imagine if you were told that these current temperatures are about 45C warmer than what’s on it’s way. That’s what some US residents are facing this week, with a polar vortex threatening to bring temperatures down to mind-bogglingly parky -53C.

Weather officials have been warning residents in Iowa to take precautions if they go outside, including avoiding taking deep breaths, and minimising talking. Frostbite could occur within 10 minutes, and state of emergency has been declared in some states.

President Trump tweeted “What the hell is going on with Global Warming? Please come back fast, we need you!” which is worrying, but doubly so when you spot that he spelt it as “Global Waming.”

So, whilst we grumble about scraping a bit of frost off the car in the morning, or that the light dusting of snow caused traffic chaos, at least we aren’t facing temperatures as extreme as some will be.

Is that what you call “cold comfort”?

This post first appeared as my "A wry look at the week" column, in The Mail, on Friday the 1st of February 2019. The version used on their website was re-titled as "I really am a weather nerd".

Of course, the coldest temperature I've seen in the last year promptly changed, with last night reaching a decidedly chilly -8.5C where I hang out in the Yorkshire Dales nowadays.

Photo is one of my own, taken at work earlier in the week.

(Tape time: No.54 - Jean Michel Jarre's "Oxygene", and some of ELO's "Discovery". Recorded from the vinyl, sometime in the early 80s onto a Boots own-brand C60.)