There’s No Place Like Dome
November 11th, 2009 by ComputerBob
My wife and I lived way up north in the Frostbite State for more than 17 years.
So, based on the fact that, every year, we had about 8 months of what other parts of the country would call “winter,” I figure that we lived through more than 45 years worth of winter during those 17 years.
And they weren’t the “Oooh, look at the pretty snow” type of winters that you always see in romantic comedies.
No, our winters were the kind that constantly reminded you that if your car refused to start or broke down on the side of the road, you could easily freeze to death.
Or that you might lose part of an ear to frostbite while walking all the way across campus to your car, with both hands full of books and papers, after you finish teaching a night class.
Each January, we had at least a week or two during which the daily high temperatures was only 10 below zero (-23 Celsius), while at night, it dropped to as low as 50 below zero (-46 Celsius).
Nothing that you do in your life can be done very well at 50 below zero.
Nothing that you own is designed to work reliably at 50 below zero.
And with wind-chill temperatures as low as 100 below zero (-73 Celsius), any exposed skin will frostbite in as little as 10 seconds.
Being so far north also means that there’s precious little daylight. Every morning, you drive to work in the dark, and since sunset comes around 4:30 PM, you also drive back home in the dark.
It was 30 below zero (-34 Celsius) the morning that we drove away from our home in the Frostbite State for the last time. Four days later, on Christmas Day, 2003, it was 74 degrees (23 Celsius) when we arrived at the mobile home that we were renting here in the Sunshine State. That’s a difference of 104 degrees (57 degrees Celsius).
Here, each year brings us about 6 months of summer and about 6 months of fall/spring.
But no winter.
And that’s just fine with me.
Imagine what life would be like if a town in a subzero area could enjoy that type of weather.
It could — if it built a giant dome over the entire town.
Does that sound like a crazy idea?
Well, in the late 1970s, that’s exactly what one town in northern Vermont town proposed.
And, for awhile, even the federal government thought it was a good idea.
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