Community Corner

The Big Chill: Colder In Plainfield Than at the North Pole

When a polar bear can't take the deep freeze, you know it's bad.

How cold was it on Monday?

So cold that we even had the North Pole beat.

According to Weather.com, at around 10 p.m. Monday, it was a balmy 15 degrees at the North Pole. Not so much in Plainfield, where it was -12 degrees, with a "real feel" temperature of -33 when you accounted for the wind chill.

Some might say Illinoisans needed to grow a thicker skin and stop grousing about the cold weather — after all, it's the Midwest! But to put things in perspective, it wasn't just too cold for the human population on Monday.

A spokeswoman for the Lincoln Park Zoo told DNAInfo Chicago that even the zoo's polar bear, Anana, was taking refuge from the sub-zero temperatures.

"Few of us are accustomed to this cold," spokeswoman Sharon Dewar said. During the deep-freeze, the city bear was being kept warm in a climate-controlled area at the zoo.

"She doesn’t typically enjoy the very cold much," Dewar reportedly said.

We're with you, Anana.

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