Hot dang it’s cold in Seattle these days. Yesterday, we stood in downtown Seattle for many hours so that we could watch the Seahawks Victory Parade. It was a blast, but it was anywhere between 20-30F with lots of wind blowing up from Puget Sound. This morning, when I left my home for the bus, it was ~18F. Let me tell you, my fingers got awfully cold awfully fast.

This is a rather unusual cold snap for the Seattle area because usually February is fairly mild. In fact, a few years ago, I went to a friend’s wedding in mid-February and got away without wearing a jacket or long pants. I wore a sundress and a lace bolero and was perfectly comfortable in the warm sunshine. So February is the tease of spring to come, March and sometimes April are like late winter, and then we have spring-like weather from May-June. All this to say, February should not be this cold, but it is cold and me no likey.

All of that to say that I am growing increasingly worried about how in the world I will be able to survive the cold in Ulaanbaatar next year. As I type this post, the weather in UB is -9F/-23C at 5:30am. I don’t think I’ve ever been in negative degree weather. I grew up in equatorial Africa, and I am only kind of used to the weather here in Seattle, so how in the world do I dress for Mongolian winters? Seriously, I need some help figuring out how to plan for that amount of cold.