You think Michigan’s weather stinks? How about trying another planet

Some Michiganders say there are two weather patterns here- cold and colder. But we have great weather compared to all the other planets sharing our sunshine.

Someday you know this will be possible, so I better get your mind thinking what planet you want to go to for a get-away.

If you want to keep it close to home, you’ll have to head to Venus or Mars. If you are going to take Elon Musk up on going to Mars, you won’t be able to pack light. Mars will be a place where you’ll need your warmest clothes and then some. According to NASA, Mars can heat up to about 32 degrees in the afternoon. Once the sun sets, you better have lots of layers on. Mars can get as cold as 200 degrees below zero at night.

Going to a cold place is no fun, so head the other way toward the Sun and make a stop at Venus. Don’t expect to get much sun though, as Venus is covered by clouds. Those clouds aren’t just any clouds. They are made of sulfuric acid, and the rain they produce is sulfuric acid. You better rent a place with a garage. Afternoon temperatures will warm up to around 850 degrees F. Don’t plan on going to the beach. NASA says if there ever were lakes and oceans on Venus, they boiled away and dried up a long time ago.

While we are heading toward the sun, let’s stop at Mercury, the planet closest to the sun. You’ll get sun alright. It won’t be like gray Michigan. On Mercury, the sun appears three times larger and 10 times brighter than here on Earth. It gets really hot in the afternoon, up to 800 degrees F. You can’t just pack for blazing heat. The clear skies and thin atmosphere mean temperatures drop to 200 degrees below zero at night. You thought Michigan was bad on temperature swings?

Let’s take more time off and scoot to Jupiter. If you thought you could stay somewhere on Jupiter, you’ve been had. Jupiter is made of gas, and doesn’t have ground to stand on. It would be a great place to storm chase on vacation. The giant red spot is quite a storm at over 340 years old and churning 270 mph winds.

It’ll take you some time to get to Saturn, the next planet in line. Saturn is not a place to take the kids. You’ll hear, “Are we there yet?” more times than you want to, with Saturn about one billion miles away from Earth. Saturn is way too cold, averaging 285 degrees F below zero.

Next stop to the outer galaxies would be Uranus. Uranus is an ice giant, averaging about 360 degrees below zero. The seasons will really mess you up on Uranus too. One season of summer or winter could last 21 Earth years, with either all sun or all dark. Spring and fall have days that only last 17 hours. Talk about not knowing what time of day it is.

Neptune is the final stop in our solar system. It’s cold and windy- sounds like Houghton Lake here in Michigan. Well it’s much colder and much windier. The temperature is 390 degrees below zero, and the wind can howl up to 1200 miles per hour- the fastest winds in our solar system. Just for fun I put those numbers into the wind chill calculator, and came up with minus 766 degrees for a wind chill.