Star Tribune: On Ground Hog Day, 1996, a weather observer in Tower, Minn., tallied a new statewide record low temperature: minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit. At our house, about 35 miles west, it was minus 50.
Respectable, certainly, but I was unsatisfied.
Just before sunrise, an event seeming merely ceremonial under the circumstances, I hiked down to a neighboring bog clutching a thermometer. Inhaling the brittle air was uncomfortable, but I happily watched as the mercury dropped to minus 65, then separated into...