ARRRGGGHH!  Enough already MOTHER NATURE!  Or should I call you mother...ok, this is a family blog.  We are climbing up the walls here in Fairbanks, halfway through Week Two of temperatures at negative forty.  NEGATIVE FORTY, I SAID.

As if the dark weren't enough (4 hours and 22 minutes of daylight today!), as if the bitter cold weren't enough, this ice fog continues to envelop the city in a disgusting haze of pollution.  At peak traffic hours it's hard to see traffic lights until you are ten or fifteen yards away from the intersections.  I dropped Josh off at the University this morning and the elevation gain proved to be a brief relief from the claustrophobic clouds of exhaust.  It also afforded us a spectacular view of a city engulfed in smog.

This is the "normal" view of town from the Reichardt Building on the UAF campus, taken 17 April 2007:

Now for today, 6 January 2008 (between 12:00 PM and 12:10 PM, AKST):

It's incredible, isn't it?  Josh remarked that it looked more like an ocean than fog, the way the sunlight reflected off of the "surface."

Josh likes the way the trees are peeking through the fog in this one:

From the same vantage point, if you turn westward you can see Chena Ridge.  I've posted pictures of Chena Ridge before.  Here is one from 25 March 2007:

On a very, very clear day we can see Denali (Mt. McKinley) rising above the ridge.  Josh took this one on 6 November 2008:

This was the view of Chena Ridge today:

The airport has been reading temperatures in the -40s and I don't think we have hit the "official" -50 °F mark in town yet, but Fred Meyer continues to deliver shocking (though inaccurate) numbers.

Many of you have asked me if Alaska districts cancel school during these periods of extreme low temperatures.  The answer is no. 

I am thankful for every snow day I ever had.