01-30-2026 — Lowest yet

Howdy all. So last night I didn’t sleep hardly at all. Maybe an hour from like 5 am to 6 am. But the worst part was at 04:04 am. That is when the street power dropped. Total darkness, and silence everywhere. Well, except the one generator that is autostart somewhere in the neighborhood. Mine is manual. It was all of ZERO degrees Fahrenheit outside at that time. Fortunately, the power was back on at 04:18. During those 14 minutes, the temperature downstairs dropped from 66 to 62 degrees.

I was just getting myself ready to try and come downstairs and pretend to start my generator. It likely would not start in those temperatures. As I said, I did fall asleep soon after.

When I got up at just before 7 am, Alexa was saying the temperature in North Madison was minus 5 degrees. Brr fur shure. Even more shocking was when I got downstairs and saw this.

Yep, a solid MINUS TEN at 07:21 am on Jan 30 (2026).

Felt more like minus one hundred as I took the trash cans out to the street for pickup. The schools in Madison were to be open today. The main streets are fairly cleared, and it is sunny. But, they couldn’t get the school buses to start and had to cancel for yet another day. People on Nextdoor.com were reporting temperatures in Madison, from around Minus 8 to Minus 13 at their homes. Sending some poor kid out to wait for a bus, that wasn’t coming, certainly would not be a good thing.

That icy driveway is solid — no mushy slushy there.

Hey, things are looking positive.. As in it is now a Positive 1 degree outside at 10:00 am. Being Positive is one way to Enjoy Life