Don’t go outside dressed like this, unless you enjoy frostbite and dying

This is it.  After weeks of anxious temperature-watching, our thermometers have dropped below thirty at last. And, you know what? We hate it. Bwog writer Betsy Ladyzhets explains why our current weather situation is a. terrible, and b. definitely the work of sadistic weather gods.

After months of torturous back-and-forth between almost-cold weather and balmy wannabe-beach days, winter has set in for good. And, yes, we here at Bwog may have been complaining about the lack of a White Christmas and missed opportunities for snowball fights on Low steps a month ago, but now, the sadistic weather gods are making up for lost time by making this city more similar to the Arctic Tundra than ever before.

Sadistic weather gods, you ask? Do those really exist? I thought the weather was a result of wind patterns created by the spinning of the Earth or something. Well, first of all, it’s amazing that you remember anything from FroSci, and second of all, yes, they do. We have evidence. No mere natural geological process could want to torture us innocent Columbia students this much.

Evidence A: Morningside Heights has been transformed into a wind tunnel. If you tried stepping outside these past couple of days without a hat, hood, and scarf (yes, you need all three), you probably noticed that you couldn’t feel your face within about thirty seconds. This part of Manhattan is stuck between two rivers, and both of those rivers must have weather gods that someone really pissed off. (I blame pollution.) We can’t really call it “wind chill” anymore – at this point, it’s more like “wind freezing our asses off.”

Evidence B: In this age of cold terror, everything freezes. It’s as though someone looked at the song “Hey Ya” by Outkast, counted every iteration of “alright” in the lyrics, and froze that many water droplets per square inch of sidewalk.  And it’s not just slippery spots to avoid while running to class we’re dealing with, either. Breath freezes. Spit freezes. Vodka disguised in tinted water bottles freezes. Even the coffee in our styrofoam coffee cups freezes. If this continues, we might just have to start carrying portable heaters between buildings to protect the precious caffeine sources those terrible weather gods are trying to take from us.

Evidence C: Even when the sun comes out, the weather is still terrible. You might look out your dorm window in the morning, see the sun smiling down on our fair campus, and think, Oh, this isn’t so bad, I can go outside with just two layers on today. Don’t. The weather gods deceiving you. It’s possible that the sunny parts of the sidewalk are a couple of degrees warmer than the area shrouded in shade, but what’s a couple of degrees when the temperature is still cold enough to make you want to sprint back to your dorm, cover yourself with every blanket you can find, and never ever go outside again? Don’t fall for their trap. Wear even more layers than you did yesterday.

And there you have it. Weather gods exist, and they hate us. As the mathematicians say, Q.E.D. So, bundle up in as many scarves as physically possible and get real friendly with your radiator, because this season just got excruciating.

The weather gods’ next victim via Wikimedia Commons