Winter Weather

People have proven remarkably adaptable to the extreme winter weather of the northern Great Plains. It is easy to overlook one item that has kept people warm for almost 250 years, and North Dakotans have a teenager from Maine to thank for it.

North Dakota winters can get cold. North Dakotans take it as a point of pride that they can withstand temperatures that would make many people gasp. The winter of 1935-36 proved to be a rough one, and February was the worst of all. Trains were halted by snowdrifts. Towns were isolated. The Watertown basketball team could not get home after a game, taking refuge in a stranded Great Northern train.

ND Highway Patrol and Dept. of Transportation say that's slightly above normal.

Granville, North Dakota, recorded an 83-degree rise in temperature on this date in 1918, one of the most extreme temperature changes ever recorded. In…