John would not have liked living where I was in South Dakota in December 1983. Here are some stats:
Highest Temperature: 23 degrees above zero- Cold, but we have temps like that here in Connecticut. What's the big deal, right?
Lowest Temperature: -27. Brr that is cold...good thing it was the extreme. But hold on...
The average LOW temperature for the month: -6.4
and finally:
The average HIGH temperature for the month: 7.8 degrees. At least it was in positive temperatures!
There was a 10 day span when the temperature never went above 0. ZERO! 10 DAYS of below zero temperatures.
You don't even want to know the windchill index for those -27 nights. Okay, maybe you do. Try around -80
If your car wasn't plugged in to an engine block heater, you weren't going anywhere. Back in those days, there was no fuel injection. You had to give the engine a little gas when starting it. Only my car kept having the gas pedal freeze. If I pressed it down to start the engine, it stayed there with a very cold engine revving and racing. There was many a morning I was out with a hair dryer and extension cord warming up the gas pedal just so I could start the car to go to work, plug the car in when I got to work, repeat the hair dryer process to start the car so I could go home.
We lived in South Dakota for about 5 years. It takes a special kind of person to live out there - which is why we left!