OK, I admit the headline is a stretch to tie into Bill and Ted's excellent adventure, but the current big ridge of high pressure is making for some "excellent" fodder for a blog entry, as my army of weather stat-heads have been finding for me today.

As this warm ridge of high pressure builds in heat from the south, some of the places in the Yukon, which had been dozens of degrees below zero, are now wildly swinging to the other side of the pendulum. Darin Hansen e-mailed me to note that in the small town of Old Crow in the Yukon Territories, the low temperature on Tuesday was -58 degrees F. The expected high Thursday? 32 degrees above zero -- a warming of 90 degrees in just over 48 hours. How's that for the coldest heat wave ever?

Many other towns in the northern Yukon and Northwest Territories are also going similar swings (although not 90 degree swings, but in the 60-80 degree F range). In fact, the high in Inuvik, which is way up near the shores of the Arctic Ocean, is +37 F on Thursday -- not too far from Tacoma's expected high that day.