Tag: china

A question for the Enthusiasts:

What country has the widest single-day weather variation?

As you know, the Northeast is socked in today due to a winter storm that is not officially named Stella, but Fillmore South has had the AC blasting all day: the thermometer hit 80 here for an hour or so. It is simultaneously arctic and tropical in America today; no matter what type of skiing you enjoy, you could do it on March 14th.

(And I’m only counting the mainland. No territories or holdings or military outposts. Guam’s weather does not count towards America’s total. And y’know what? Alaska and Hawaii are out, too. Alaska and Hawaii and fake states. I like states that are contiguous, okay?

Don’t do that.

Dude, I’m in a parenthetical aside. You can’t come in here. This is my dojo.

Dojos aren’t built out of punctuation.

What about commakazis?

You’re a lousy, rotten son of a bitch.

Get out.

Get back to the point.

Fine.)

But where else? The key is the north-south axis–you need about a thousand miles or so of latitudinal coverage–but global placement matters, too. Canada stretches up towards the North Pole for almost 40 degrees of latitude, but starts up too high for huge swings. (Canadian Enthusiasts may tell me I’m wrong in the Comment Section, or they could just be nice about it and agree with me, and perhaps tell me I’m pretty and special.)

I posed the question to the Champion of Cascadia, Mr. Completely, and he came up with Chile and fuck me if his answer didn’t beat mine: Chile’s 2,600 miles from top to bottom, even though it’s only 25 feet wide at certain points. Chile is a bit drier than the States, though: the northern part is the Atacama (the world’s desertiest desert) and the southern tip is tundra. Reindeer could live there quite comfortably, especially because of the low cost of living.

Russia also has a long north-south span, but it’s got Canada’s problem of being too far up on the globe. Look at this bullshit:

That’s where Santa lives, for Christ’s sake. (Or, lived. Putin had Santa poisoned.) Little bits by the Black Sea supposedly have a subtropical climate, but I don’t buy it. Can’t fool me, Russia: you’re cold as a grinch’s dick everywhere and all the time.

And, of course, China. China is so large that all the weather happens there every single day: typhoon, blizzard, mostly sunny with a few puffy clouds, all the weather. China has places where it’s never rained, and places where it’s never not rained. Frogs fall from the sky regularly; they are immediately eaten, as the Chinese will eat absolutely anything up to and including skyfrogs.

What am I missing?