My wife says the frost got deeper this year because we've had the longest cold weather in more than a two decades.

I say the frost was deeper when we had much shorter periods of really cold weather. ( Like - 25 ) Who's right?

I'm going with your wife on this one, based on the amount of sustained cold it would take to drive the frost line deeper over the area,
would expect the thermal mass of the ground to not respond as quickly to short duration blasts of cold.

You'd both need a core sample showing how deep the frost was in each of your years you are referring to, take those quantitative
measurements and compare them to see who takes the prize!

I going with the wife too.... Just because my wife said so...

It doesn't matter...except that she is right.

It would depend on the amount of insulating snow on the ground. If the snow got there early and never left, the frost may not have been deeper than normal. If you didn't have any snow to insulate and lots of cold weather it could drive the frost down deep!

The Hows and Whys of Frost Depth Measurements- http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=mkx&storyid=94354&source=0
Instrument Construction and Installation- http://ine.uaf.edu/werc/projects/permafrost/howto.pdf
Minnesota Ground Frost Study- http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/natural_res...frost_study.pdf

So if the woodchuck hibernated in the right area, and his den was 4 feet deep, he probably lived to tell about it.

Conversely, if his den didn't get much snow cover, he is no longer with us. ( Nobody has seen a woodchuck yet )

My friend stopped by about 5 PM today. New Pocket Gopher mounds were popping up along I-35 today!

We just received this communique from our natural gas supplier. It should be called the Al Gore Report. And I quote:

January 2014 was the 16th coldest month on record and the coldest January in more than 30 years.

Scraped my windshield off once all this winter, we have just had the wettest winter ever recorded, or since Noah was a lad.its been a [Please excuse my language... I'm an idiot] doing Mole work.

You should be able to check with your states geology service, or, maybe call a well digger service.

Whats this frost thing you folks are talking about? Must be that the result of that white fluffy stuff I saw come down on the mountains many miles from my house and many thousand feet higher!

Justin, I just can't imagine how many more customers we need just to keep pace with you southern folk! I guess that's a good thing. If I were fantastically wealthy, I would only be a bigger pain in the the butt than I am poor! ( Just try to imagine that )

Check out your historical weather. In the last 30 years, about 1/3 of the Januaries were colder where I live. We were still 800 heating degree days colder than last year.

http://weather-warehouse.com/WeatherHistoryListing/monthlyWeatherDataStart.html

Matt

I'd call a cemetery. I figure they would dig a few holes in the winter...

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. CNN wants all of us to keep a sharp lookout for parts of the missing Malaysia plane that might be in and around our cages.

Considering the importance of this discussion, I would say the wife is right.
Explaination:
Is it better to be right and miserable, or wrong and happy?
Let her have this one.

Yes. Your wife is right. Just practice saying "yes, dear".
Fox News continues to seek evidence connecting President Obama to the disappearance of MH370.