Here in the frozen north, we have a weatherman, Mr. Tom Skilling, who is really beyond compare. He is the butt of many jokes for his hour long weather forecasts, yet never fails to drop many fun facts. Since checking the weather forecast obsessively is one of my favorite hobbies, it’s no surprise that recently I’ve become a big fan of Tom Skilling’s blog.

Today he busted out this little gem:

It was colder Thursday afternoon in Chicago than at the North Pole — 6 below zero here versus 8 degrees.

Fun times! Once again my eyes froze shut today as I walked to work from the subway station. I gently picked the tiny icicles off, and I am glad to report that there was but a single follicular casualty.

This morning on the train everyone seemed both happy and sad. It’s pretty brutal to have to do anything when the wind chill is holding steady at -40, and tears are streaming down everyone’s face. Well, really it’s just their eyelashes melting, however it imparts a rather melancholy air. The sun, which I must remind myself actually warms other locales, was shining meagerly through the frosted windows. The whole affair was actually kind of sweet. We’re all in this together, this freezing, this crying, this Friday morning commute. There’s not much to be done aside from exchanging sympathetic half smiles with one another.

Incidentally, Tom Skilling’s brother was the CEO of Enron.