1 I don't exactly live in a tropical paradise. South-central Minnesota, where the Twin Cities are found, does however gobsmack us with high temperatures at times. I was driving home from the store on a hot day in July and at one point -- for about ten seconds -- my car's thermometer display showed 100 degrees. The month as a whole was pretty warm but not debilitatingly so -- high 90s a lot, but then I think about my brother-in-law who lives in Fresno, CA and the climate there, and there's no comparison.

I will never forget the second year we lived here -- 1995. We had temperatures of definitely over 100 almost every day for two weeks in a row. It was balanced out by a two-week period during the winter, probably in January, where the mercury went down to -20 and stayed.

2 Yeah; you guys have a classic continental climate with hot spells and cold winters. Like Russia.

I sometimes wish for that; we have a continental climate here in St. Louis but it is the COLD spells that are rare and the hot spells common.