Fickle mercury

I have a feature on my Weather.com Gold account that shows temperatures and weather at 10 favorite cities on one screen. This has been an interesting week on the "My Cities" page. For example, I keep tabs on Dubuque, Iowa, in the heart of the Driftless Area. I also keep up with the weather in Governor's Harbour on the island of Eleuthera in The Bahamas. Yesterday morning, it was 28 degrees below zero in Dubuque. It was 100 degrees warmer, 72, on the idyllic Out Island of Eleuthera at the same time.

There were some jaw-dropping lows recorded in the Chicago area yesterday morning. It's hard to fathom 30 degrees below zero, but that's what the temperature in Joliet was during the a.m. commute. About 90 miles west of Chicago, in Rochelle, a temperature of 36 below was recorded, though from an unofficial location. So the all-time low of minus-36 at Congerville, near Peoria, stands from many years ago.

As my friend who went to college in Grand Forks, N.D., points out, at some point it's just cold. The difference between 10 degrees below and 30 degrees below is pointless. It's just cold. You scamper from building to car and hope your battery isn't dead. (My car battery, by the way, is actually dead as I write this.)

Regular driftless area readers are well-represented on "My Cities." Here is the list: Chicago, Richmond, Va., Sudbury, Ont., Dubuque, Iowa, Baldwin, Mich., Governor's Harbour, Mountain, Wis., Livonia, Mich., Willoughby Hills, Ohio, Saint Paul, Minn., and Amesbury, Mass.