Monday, January 30, 2012

So close!

More about cold from Watt's Up With That

Bitter cold records broken in Alaska - all time coldest record nearly broken, but Murphy’s Law intervenes
Jim River, AK closed in on the all time record coldest temperature of -80°F set in 1971, which is not only the Alaska all-time record, but the record for the entire United States. Unfortunately, it seems the battery died in the weather station just at the critical moment.


Yep. When the temperature reached -79 degrees F at 18:34 on January 28th. Surely it got below -80 degrees F. No?

According to Anthony, the electronic weather station used at Jim River is built to operate at temperatures from -40 to 150 degrees F. The lithium batteries used to backup the solar power used during the day also is built to operate from -40 to 150 degrees F. Not sure if we can blame Murphy for this or not. Seems more like a SNAFU.


3 comments:

threecollie said...

Oh, man, that is awful...both the failure and the very thought of temperatures that low.

joated said...

Yeah. It's like leading the Indy 500 from the pole to within the last 100 yards and losing because you ran out of gas.

Rev. Paul said...

"ran out of gas" is a perfect analogy. I'm sure the guy in question was kicking himself.