Accura Commercial; Baudette, Minnesota; and Weather That's Not Boring

An Accura television commercial's narration caught the Lemming's attention:

"Every year year we travel to Baudette, Minnesota, to see how our luxury vehicles ... perform under the most brutal, punishing conditions. If your winters are tougher than this, you don't need a new car: You need a new place to live."

Baudette, Minnesota, is near the Canadian border, a bit south of Lake of the Woods. The Lemming thought you might like to see what current conditions are in Baudette:


Despite what that Acura commercial showed, temperatures around 25 below Fahrenheit aren't quite typical. The Lemming checked the Wunderground.com almanack for today (February 15) in Baudette, and found that the average high today is 19 degrees above, with a low of minus five . Fahrenheit, that is. Celsius, that'd be be about minus seven down to minus 20.

Here in central Minnesota, where the Lemming lives, the average is a comparatively balmy 25 degrees for a high and three for a low. Celsius, about minus four and minus 16.

We're both in Minnesota, so "average" weather is more of a mathematical abstraction than something that actually happens. According to the Wunderground.com records, a place near here had a record high of 45 °F in 1981, and a record low of -23 °F in 1970, 'on this day in history.'

For Baudette, Minnesota, it's a record high of 47 °F in 1981 (that was a warm year), and low of -45 °F in 1939.

Say what one may about Minnesota, our weather isn't boring.

Lest Acura be accused of exaggerating the ruggedness of Baudette's winters, today's average high and low in Winnepeg, Manitoba are 22 °F and 2 °F. The records were 32 °F in 1998 and -31 °F in 2003.

Of course, there are places with colder winters than Minnesota. Like the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. And that's another topic.

More:

• City of Baudette, Minnesota
• lakeofthewoodsmn.com