During last weekend’s cold snap, there were various media and social media attempts to put our cold temperatures into perspective, most of which failed. One was the comparison of Fargo-Moorhead temperature (-20 degrees) to the South Pole (0 degrees). Actually, a temperature near zero at the South Pole is above average, but it is important to remember that it is summer at the South Pole, making this comparison somewhat irrelevant.
Another comparison was that it was supposedly warmer somewhere on Mars. Temperatures on the Martian surface can vary from -200 to 70, but the air is so thin, your blood would boil away before you could enjoy the weather.
The weather here was also compared favorably to the North Pole. First of all, there are no weather observations at the North Pole so no one knows the temperature, but it is not unusual for Polar weather to be above average during a Fargo cold snap. The southward displacement of Polar air is why we got so cold.
