Ooooh! It’s going to FREEZE tonight! It’s going to drop BELOW FREEZING for entire HOURS ON END! OH MY GOD WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! according to the local weather guys. One actually had the balls to use the word “frigid.” What with what the weather’s been like elsewhere, I don’t think 31F counts as fucking frigid.
Granted, this is New Orleans, where people break out parkas and heavy gloves when it gets below about 60F.
Wimps.
Pffft. That ain’t even cold enough to freeze your boogers. Send those pussies up here to Wisconsin, where it’s (checks weather.com) -5 degrees F this evening, to find out what “frigid” is REALLY like.
Well, I nearly fell off my chair a few days ago when they issued a “Severe Weather Alert!” because the temperature was supposed to drop near freezing for as much as 3-4 hours one night. Laughed out loud, to my coworkers’ annoyance.
Of course, we do have Mardi Gras parades starting up in three weeks, so we want it to be warm!
Hah. You don’t even know frigid until you’ve met some girls I know.
I loved it when I lived in L.A. (Lower Alabama) and the temperature would drop.
The local TV news would start to broadcast information on how water would freeze & reminders to bring pets inside. It’s such a rarity that, I guess, they though people needed basic information on how to survive at 28° F.
I’ve lived in the New Orleans area and can kinda see where those weather guys are coming from. Yes, they’re being a bit extreme but people need to be reminded to take precautions, especially those who aren’t used to such weather or are not aware New Orleans can get below freezing.
I think it was our first winter in Kenner when we returned home after being away for the holidays and found one of our pipes had frozen. Prior to moving to Kenner, my family had always lived above -88° Longitude so we were no strangers to cold weather. We just didn’t expect it there.
Pshaw…it’s been sub-zero for the past three weeks here, down to -15 to -25. Just nasty, that’s all. In the last couple of days it’s warmed up to 20 above, which is a nice relief. My wife left this morning for one of the properties she manages up on the border. It has warmed up from -40 to zero there, so she should be just dandy.
I guess this is one of those things about New Orleans I will never quite get. If it froze as rarely as it snows here (I think I heard the last time it did that was 1986) THEN I’d understand the fuss. But it does this EVERY YEAR.
And every year, they freak out disproportionately. I haven’t lived in a climate with a real winter since I was SIX YEARS OLD (though I’ve only been here a year) and I know better than to freak about it getting below freezing.
I had a friend who grew up with me here in Kansas, who lived in Fairbanks, Alaska for three and a half years, while her husband was stationed there while in the Air Force. Their next posting after that was San Antonio, Texas, and it amused her no end to hear folks talking about how cold it was, when it got down to just below freezing. She would tell them, “Heck, up in Alaska this would be a HEAT wave this time of year.”
My parents lived in WI all their lives, and a few years ago they started being RV snowbirds, driving around the South from October to April. This year they’ve planted themselves in Texas, near Brownsville, and my mother doesn’t get much sympathy from me when she gripes about the cold, cold fifty-degree weather. Cry me a river. Remember how you lived up here in the land of snow for fifty years? When’s the last time you had to shovel? How soon they forget.
Bugger that, and bugger tough-guy(-gal) posturing by dwellers of the frozen wastes. Go hang out with the Frost Giants and be quiet. Any time water becomes a solid, it IS cold. And conversely, for good measure, I don’t care if “it’s a dry heat” or not, 98F is too goddamn hot, whether Phoenix or Baltimore.
Granted, Minneapolis is on a whole different plane of “frigid” on a typical mild winter day than, say, Mobile in a once-a-century cold snap. But that just proves people will move anywhere if they think that no-one with any sense will follow 
jrd
It’s all relative, though. I remember hearing a weatherman up here describe 80 degrees (fahrenheit) as “scorching.” That was sad.
Nah, just run-of-the-mill frigid. As I see it, “icy” and “frigid” are synonyms. -20°C is fucking frigid. 0°C is just frigid.
What do you want the weatherdrone to say? “It’s a balmy 30°F! Leave your pants at home!”
In my universe, anything below about 45F (if there’s a wind, especially) qualifies as cold. Frigid doesn’t come into play until, oh, the single digits. I certainly am not trying to say that I find freezing temps to be WARM, just that it’s NOT THAT COLD.
I guess my thermostat got set in Ohio or something.
I know that feeling. I’m constantly lauded for being able to survive in the cold where I live, way up north. I live in Atlanta. You know, Georgia. Deep South. But the New Orleans-based relatives are convinced I take a dogsled to work and all I hear is how I live “way up north” now.
Count me as a wimp, then. I always shriek in disbelief when people say, “Wow, it’s only 5 degrees out!” Hi, that’s 27 degrees below freezing, and all you can think of is “wow”? How about, “Oh my gawd, it’s the end of the world!”? because that is what I am thinking. Anything below 60 is cold. Anything below 40 is fucking frigid.
But I’ll be laughing come summer when it’s 110 degrees with 90% humidity up here and everyone else is complaining about wilting.
5F, what is that? -15C? That’s not cold. That’s a very pleasant January day here.
Mind you, I think it’s too damn hot as soon as it goes over about 85F or so. 
31F is frigid! Stuff can freeze, i.e., “frigid.”
If you live in the frozen north you adapt. Hell, I once lived through a cold spell where for 10 days the temp didn’t get above zero F, and on the 11th day it got up to 16F and I left my parka unzipped–and I am a native of southern Calif. whose teeth chatter when the temp drops below 75F in my office.
Believe it. 59F is considered a nice (and very typical) winter day here (in usually sunny Colorado) but when I lived in Oklahoma we’d have indoor recess if the temp was below 55, and in California we’d be bundled up in our coats. (Which, now that I think about it, never, ever wore out.)
31F is not frigid – it’s stacked. (Actually, I’m not really sure whether it’s physically possible.)
What? You say this thread isn’t about boobies? Sorry, I’ll be leaving now…
It’s just under 31F here and it’s a gorgeous night. I almost took my jacket off on the short walk across the parking lot to my car tonight. A co-worker commented that he, too, thought it was lovely for it to be so warm.
(Although he didn’t use the word “lovely”. I don’t think factory workers are aloud to use that word amongst each other.)
My sister and brother-in-law moved from here (Minnesota) to Virginia a year or so ago. They tell me that they’re constantly amazed by people who think 50 or 40 degrees is COLD. They also tell me that the locals are constantly amazed that they think 80 degrees is HOT. 