Baby Sorenne slept for a four-hour stretch last night. Not bad one week in. And now the big chill is supposed to arrive later today. It was 60F (15C) at 5 a.m., and has already dropped to 26F (-4C) by 10 a.m., and supposed to be 10F (-12C) by tonight.

A year ago Manhattan (Kansas) was suffering through an ice storm that knocked power out for a few days. The U.S. Northeast is going through the same thing: more than 1 million homes and businesses are without power after a huge ice storm.

“The ice storm compared with some of the Northeast’s worst, especially in New Hampshire, where more than half the state — 400,000-plus homes and businesses — was without power at the peak of the outage. Far fewer customers were affected by the infamous Ice Storm of ’98, when some residents spent more than a week in the dark. New Hampshire opened at least 25 shelters.”

"This is pathetic," said Bob Cott of Portland, Maine. "I’m already sick of winter and we have nine days to go before it officially begins."

And that’s a good reason to be in Kansas, rather than Maine, or Canada.