Weather With You

So its January in New York and I’ve just gotten back from a walk to the post office in a T-Shirt and jeans. I was here around this time last year and we got three feet of snow dumped upon us. Something must be up, but although I was looking forward to a proper white Christmas (it was not, it was hot) this year I’ve been fairly happy with the whole global warming effect. From past experience it gets bitterly cold here, the kind of cold where you ears hurt and you can’t feel your toes and you daren’t get your hands out of your pockets to change the Elkie Brooks song your ipod seems to find and insist on playing every single time you set it to random.

So since I spend most of my time walking about warm is definitely better. Having said that I’ve lost the ability to work out what exactly the temperature is since the degrees here are measured in Farenheit, the bizarre scale that seems to bear no relationship to anything in the real world (FYI here’s how to convert, and why I can’t do it in my head – °C = (°F − 32) ÷ 1.8). Actually though, I looked about a bit and it seems this is the basis for the scale:

0°F is the coldest it got in 1708 and so therefore should be regarded as 0..
100°F is the body temperature of Mr Farenheit at the time he measured it. He probably had a slight cold.

Anyway I guess like most English people I know that when it is 70°F like it was here the other day (in January..) then it is nice and warm, since back home everyone still likes to measure hot weather with high numbers. Anything below that though, like 45° and I have no idea if thats cold or just hard nipple weather. I suppose this is just another example of the reluctance to go metric which I still don’t understand.

Well back to the point, I’ve noticed that its not properly cold here, we’ve had no snow, in short its nothing like all the Christmas films I’ve seen from NY. There aren’t even any tramps wearing fingerless gloves hanging round bins on fire, randomly discussing poetry and that body they just pulled out of the river. Very disappointing.