Fury

Although it is not yet officially winter here in Maine, take it from me... it is winter here in the northern woods of Maine. Yesterday's heavy rain didn't completely melt the snow that preceded it and the memory of that rain lingers only in the ice that has resulted from it.
Maine gets its cold from northern Canada, from gusty northwest winds and large high pressure centers that bring heavy, cold air down to us from the frigid northern plains and Hudson's Bay regions. Punctuating that cold are storms that come to us from the Ohio Valley or even from the Gulf of Mexico. If the storms pass west of us, we get rain and temperatures above freezing, but storms that pass to the east, out over the Gulf of Maine bring snow. Yet within a day, each storm is swept away by another mass of cold, gusty air from Canada.
I was just outside for a minute. The sky is gray with clouds but I could see the sun low in the sky trying to break through. The sun doesn't get very high in the sky in Maine from November through February. But on days like today, the sun bears no heat at all. One of the most discouraging experiences I can recall from my years in Maine is the experience of standing outdoors in the sun in winter, turning my face to the sun, and feeling no warmth on my face, no relief from the sharp winter wind. Today is that kind of day.
It's still early in winter. The thermometer is still high on the scale for a winter day. Within a month, it will be plunging to -20, possibly even -30 or -40 on occasion. The daytime sun will be even lower than it is today and will bear even less warmth than today's sun bears. Some years bring an unbroken string of below freezing temperatures from now till the beginning of March. And the only consolation that I know is that there are places on earth even colder than Maine!