Ten states are colder than… Mars?

Yup, you read that unfortunate headline right. The high at my house today in St. Anthony, Idaho is going to around 4, while the high where the Curiosity Rover is on Mars is forecasted to be 28. In fact, 10 states will be completely colder that the high at Curiosity and another 18 states will have at least some part below that 28-degree high today. Including Hawaii!

The data comes from an app on my phone called Sol (archive), which takes data from the MAAS API to put this information very conveniently in my pocket. This, and a couple of other similar apps, are available on the App Store and Google Play.

Anyway, here’s a map of today’s highs that I swiped from the National Weather Service (archive) and edited very professionally in Microsoft Paint:

And, while we’re at it, here’s a list of states that will be colder than Mars today (but not in alphabetical order, because I’m too lazy for that):
– Alaska (partial)
– Hawaii (at the very top of Mauna Loa)
– Washington (mostly east of the Cascades)
– Oregon (also mostly east of the Cascades)
– California (mostly in the Sierra Nevada)
– Idaho
– Nevada (partial)
– Utah (partial)
– Montana
– Wyoming
– Colorado (mostly)
– New Mexico (near Clayton)
– North Dakota
– South Dakota
– Nebraska
– Kansas (mostly)
– Oklahoma (partial)
– Texas (Panhandle)
– Minnesota
– Iowa
– Missouri (mostly north of I-44)
– Wisconsin
– Illinois (partial)
– Michigan
– New York (in the Adirondacks)
– Vermont (around Bennington)
– New Hampshire (south of Concord)
– Maine (except very close to the coast)