90° to -24° in five seconds

The sun is so amazing. It was -24° Real Feel outside, but our enclosed front porch was basically a solar oven.

Also, I realized I can take a panoramic selfie.

Me in a selfie via pano mode. My porch in the sunlight gets really warm.

A wide panoramic shot of a me sitting on a wooden bench inside a sun-drenched enclosed porch. I have a short beard, glasses, a blue baseball cap, and a brown zip-up jacket. I am positioned on the right side of the frame, with the porch's gray siding behind him and a red-and-white striped umbrella leaning against the wall. To my left, a series of large windows look out onto a snowy residential neighborhood in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.

The panoramic selfie is not done in selfie mode. Rather, it’s done in pano mode. Hold your phone out with your arms extended. Turn the phone around on a pivot, eventually having it scan by your face.

It takes a few tries to get the angle just right. One of my favorite things is if you keep pivoting your phone even after the pano is done, it automatically starts a new pano! I never knew that! The result ended up with some cool shaky, stair-stepped panoramics.

A wide-angle, panoramic interior view of an enclosed porch with gray siding and hardwood floors. On the left wall, a pink leopard-print backpack and a black drawstring bag hang from hooks. Large white-framed windows look out onto a snowy residential street under a clear blue sky. The floor is partially covered by a patterned tan rug, and several pairs of shoes are tucked into the corner near the window. The image contains some jagged stitching artifacts from the panoramic capture in the center.

Another one, just like the other, but just a bit different.

The effect is even more obvious, because of the horizontal lines in the subject.

Anyways, back to the temperatures.

It got up to 90.5° on our porch, even though the Real Feel outside was -24°.

A digital hygrometer/thermometer sits at an angle atop a children's book titled "Highlights Let's Go!".

The device is white and black with a large LCD screen displaying:
- Temperature: 90.5°F
- Humidity: 18%
- Time: 3:16 PM

The background includes the fuzzy teal feet of a stuffed animal and the colorful cover of the book, which features a cheerful hedgehog and a fox in winter gear. The scene is brightly lit by natural sunlight, creating a sharp shadow across the book and device. — I didn’t intentionally select that Highlights magazine with the hedgehog sliding down the snow, but it certainly tells the story nicely. Also, those paws belong to our Art Institute plush lion.

I walked my daughter over to her friend’s house across the street. I stepped off our 90° porch into the -24° outside. Just by stepping outside, I experienced a 114-degree difference! Probably the closest I’ll get to experience the South Pole.

You’d think going through a 114-degree change would feel really sudden and sharp. Like jumping into a pool of frozen water. But it actually didn’t feel that drastic. I was wearing a winter coat and a baseball cap. It felt alright.

After about two or three minutes, I could definitely feel it on my ears.

It was so cold outside that the snow seemed to be evaporating up into the air. I’m fairly certain this grass was completely covered by the snow in the morning.

An outdoor, high-angle shot of a thin, patchy layer of white snow covering a grassy area next to a sidewalk.

Two distinct boot prints are visible in the snow: one near the bottom left and another further up on the left side. The snow is uneven, with blades of dried brown grass and small patches of dirt poking through the surface. A sharp diagonal shadow falls across the upper right portion of the scene, while the rest of the snow is brightly lit by sunlight, revealing its crystalline texture.

Then by the evening, the grass started to be exposed. Is the air so dry that it’s just pulling the snow straight into the sky?

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