Must be January

January is typically the worst month here. No more than 5 or 6 hours of daylight and it's usually bitter cold. We had a few nice days a couple weeks ago, but have been locked into a long cold snap where it barely has been above zero for the past 10 days. Mostly in the -10s and -20s with no additional snow. It got down to -41 one morning.

The inversion has been been so so, and we had several days with no inversion. Not to mention that air quality (PM 2.5) is poor every day. Makes for interesting sunsets, but not so great on the lungs.

If things go by the typical pattern we'll get a few days to a week of a warm up (sometimes a chinook and a thaw), followed by the deepest and most bitter cold snap of the year. By the first week of February, things start looking up a little.

On the ski front things are also looking up a bit. I'm skiing again! Been skiing about four or five times in the past week and a half (just in time for the cold front), and the knee actually seems to be getting better every couple of days. I can ski 8-10 K now. I can tell that it's not 100% and probably will not be anything close to that until surgery. Date on that is pending.