TRIVIA:
QUOTES:
CHUCKLES/BELLY
LAUGHS & GROANERS
TRIVIA:
The longest skating 'rink' in the world is
Ottawa, Canada's Rideau Canal at 7.6 km or just over 5 miles, which freezes
over each winter.
Michigan is 58,216 sq. mi. It became a state
January 26, 1837. It is nicknamed the wolverine state, water wonderland,
winter wonderland and the automobile state. It is the 2nd largest state
east of the mississippi river (Georgia is first). The largest cities are
Detroit and Grand Rapids. The state bird, tree, stone, gem, fish and song
are the robin, the white pine, the petosky stone, the petosky greenstone,
the brook trout, and 'michigan my michigan', respectively.
Winter begins in the Northern Hemisphere on
December 21. The last day of winter is March 23rd. There are 63 days of
winter. December 22 is the day when the North Pole is tipped farthest from
the sun.
Part of the Red Cross Winter Survivor Challenge
at Harriet Island is a trivia contest that can earn contestants special
rewards, such as extra supplies or a hot meal. Here are some examples of
the questions:
Q Why should you warm the core (body)
of a person with hypothermia first, not the extremities (arms and legs)?
A If you warm the arms and legs first, it
drives cold blood to the heart and can cause heart failure.
Q How thick, in inches, should ice be before
you can walk on it safely?
A Walking, 4 inches; snowmobiling, 5 inches;
driving, 8 inches.
Q In what important ways should exercise be
modified when working out in cold weather?
A Warm up more slowly and thoroughly; avoid
exercises that require moving very rapidly or having extremely quick reflexes;
avoid tight footwear and cotton socks, and wear newer shoes that allow
room for heavier synthetic socks.
Q In what year did a New York reporter write
that St. Paul was another Siberia?
A 1885.
1. At which of the following temperatures does
water spontaneously freeze?
a. 18°F b. 32°F
c. 0°F d. -40°F
Answer: d. Ice always melts at 32°F, but
water does not always freeze at 32°F. It must freeze onto something.
However, at -40°F, water freezes spontaneously. If you poured a cup
of water out of a window with the air temperature outside at -40°F,
the water would freeze before it struck the ground.
2. Which of the following is not effected by
wind chill?
a. person b. dog
c. car radiator d. bird
Answer: c. Wind chill is the combination of
wind and temperature and is based on the rate of heat loss from exposed
skin such as that of a person or animal. As the wind increases, heat is
carried away from the body at an accelerated rate, driving the body temperature
down. Wind chill has no effect on cars or other objects.
3. What is the difference between sleet, hail,
and freezing rain?
Answer: Hail is a chunk or stone of ice dropped
from a thunderstorm. Sleet is frozen rain. Freezing rain is liquid rain
that freezes to a surface such as the road or a tree.
4. True or False. It must be 32°F or colder
for it to snow.
Answer: False. It has been known to snow with
temperatures in the mid 40°s. Temperatures are below 32°F up in
the clouds where the snow is forming.
5. On the average, one inch of rain is equivalent
to how many inches of snow?
a. 10 inches b. 1 inch
c. 5 inches d. a foot
Answer: a. 10 inches of snow melts down to
about an inch of liquid rain.
6. Can it snow from clear skies?
Answer: Yes. Ice crystals sometimes fall from
clear skies when temperatures are in the single digits or colder.
7. What is more hazardous to trees and power
lines?
a. One inch of wet snow
b. One inch of ice
Answer: b. An inch of ice is heavier than
wet snow and is hazardous enough to cause power lines and trees to come
down.
Fact: El Nino refers to a warming of the Pacific
Equatorial waters and a slackening of the Trade Winds over those waters.
But where does the name come from? It originates from Peru. Two big industries
in Peru were fishing and fertilizer. Fishermen noticed that once every
several years, the waters would warm; the upwelling of cold water that
brought nutrients to the fish would stop; the fish that fed on the nutrients
would leave; and the birds that fed on the fish would leave. The bird guano
was a major source of fertilizer. It had a great impact on the local economy.
They named it "El Nino" after the child, Jesus Christ, giving it a religious
connotation because it seemed to occur around Christmas time.
Fact: About 70 percent of winter storm related
deaths occur in automobiles. The rest are primarily due to heart attacks
from over exertions such as shoveling heavy snow or from hypothermia caused
by over exposure to the cold.
When winter storms strike, stay indoors and
keep warm and dry. Avoid over-exertion. Your heart is already working hard
in the cold to keep your body warm.
Fact: The Winter of 1779-1780 was so cold that
ice was piled 20 feet high along the Delmarva Coast and stayed there until
spring. The upper portion of the Chesapeake Bay and the entire Potomac
River was frozen solid. People were able to walk from Annapolis to Kent
Island and from Alexandria into DC.
Fact: About 50% of deaths caused by exposure
to cold (hypothermia), are to people over 60 years of age. Over 75% of
these deaths are to men. About 20% of the deaths occur in the home.
People over age 60 and children less than
a year old are most susceptible to the cold. For these people, keep indoor
temperatures above 69°F and when going outside, dress appropriately
for the cold. Have plenty of layers of clothes and a hat on the head.
QUOTES:
I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the
bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling
of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.
~Andrew Wyeth
Winter is nature's way of saying, "Up yours."
~Robert Byrne
There is a privacy about it which no other
season gives you.... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an
open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you
have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself.
~Ruth Stout
One of my current pet theories is that the
winter is a kind of evangelist, more subtle than Billy Graham, of course,
but of the same stuff.
~Shirley Ann Grau
Let us love winter, for it is the spring of
genius.
~Pietro Aretino
The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak,
is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I should say
winter had given the bone and sinew to literature, summer the tissues and
the blood.
~John Burroughs
Winter is the time of promise because there
is so little to do - or because you can now and then permit yourself the
luxury of thinking so.
~Stanley Crawford
Every mile is two in winter.
~George Herbert
When the bold branches
Bid farewell to rainbow leaves -
Welcome wool sweaters.
~B. Cybrill
"Hear! hear!" screamed the jay from a neighboring
tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, "winter has a concentrated
and nutty kernel, if you know where to look for it."
~Henry David Thoreau, 28 November 1858 journal
entry
I was just thinking, if it is really religion
with these nudist colonies, they sure must turn atheists in the wintertime.
~Will Rogers
Every winter,
When the great sun has turned his face away,
The earth goes down into a vale of grief,
And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself
in sables,
Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay -
Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses.
~Charles Kingsley
To shorten winter, borrow some money due in
spring.
~W.J. Vogel
O, wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
~Percy Bysshe Shelley
Spring, summer, and fall fill us with hope;
winter alone reminds us of the human condition.
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's
Notebook, 1966
One kind word can warm three winter months.
~Japanese Proverb
Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway
land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered,
and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken
in winter go unheard until the next summer.
~Plutarch, Moralia