"Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark" wrote George Iles.

January is a tough month for most of us. You can't find the mercury in your thermometer, the sun - when visible - is scraping the southern horizon, holiday credit card bills are falling out of your mailbox. And the local weather dweeb is predicting a Conga-line of cold fronts, an IV-drip of meteorological misery.

But sneezes of Siberian air make everything we love about Minnesota possible: from pine trees and sugar sand beaches up north to loons, walleye and fertile fields to forced ingenuity. Surviving the cold; thriving in spite of anything Mother Nature can hurl at us, drives the engine of discovery & innovation. I may sound like a shill for the Chamber of Commerce, but the cold makes us better.

Now please excuse me as I check in for my Sun Country flight to Cabo!

Hold on, models continue to show a thaw by the end of next week. Today's clipper drops a slippery inch of powder, followed by one last subzero slap - for now. 2 more subzero nights, then a slow recovery next week. You'll be amazed and vaguely horrified by just how good freezing feels.

Go ahead and take a bow. You're surviving the coldest week of winter.



http://www.startribune.com/weather/blogs/Paul_Douglas_on_Weather.html