The hardest part with this weather is keeping your eyeballs from freezing, with a small wind less alone a 30 mph wind. :eek: The scrunch everytime you walk can be loud enough that you can’t hear anything else when you walk.
The vehicles start breaking around -10F, and at -20F you wonder what will snap off when you use it. I’ve had The older lever heater controls snap off a few times. The pull up release exterior car door handles have come off in my hand. Insulation on electric cords break and sometimes the wire does too. The tires have a flat side on them when you start to drive, until they warm up. The brakes are stiff and when they catch they bite hard the first time. Hand brakes don’t realease when you release them and you have to try some forward backward motion with the vehicle to realease the brakes. The transmission is very slugish until the fluid warms up. The shocks are stiff so the flat tires are even more annoying. The windows and doors and lockes freeze shut on the cars and everything else. The less prepared have frozen ruptured radiators, dead batteries, and unless the oil is rated 5w the engine oil is too thick to allow the engine to turn over. I’ve had all the rear end lights burn out when I hit a bump in 20F weather. The filaments were brittle.
Had I the ability, I’d move to a new location every time the weather left the 60F to 80F range.
Denver is having winter this year. We’ve had four or five days of below zero temps (it was -8 a couple of days ago) and there has been two feet of snow on the ground since before Christmas. I went for a walk yesterday and went off the path where the snow had been undisturbed, and was surprised to find that it was deeper than my knees. A few more weeks (and that seems likely) and we will set an all time record for continuous snow cover.
I think it may have gone down to 24F where I live now (Baltimore) this winter. I haven’t got a parka (not cold enough for me to need one here) , but I did wear socks that day.
I lived in Toronto for a year and had a tank of window washer fluid I got in the states (Philadelphia) that lasted until winter. Now, Toronto is pretty warm compared to the northern cities and western provinces, but it still got pretty damned cold a few times, (-30 or so). Anyway, washer fluid up there is rated to -40 and fluid from the states ( asI soon learned) was rated to -20.
My car was always parked in a garage at the house I lived in, and I walked to work, so I didn’t have any problems until one night whan I went out and the fluid froze. I went to a Canadian Tire and told the guys my washer fluid froze and asked how to un-freeze it, and they were dumb-struck. They kept asking “what do you mean it froze” and I was trying to come up with new ways to describe ice, when one finally asked “where did you get the fluid that is now frozen”?
When I said “Philadelphia” he got on the overhead and paged someone and then asked me to tell the story to someone else as he cracked up. I stopped in the same store a few more times and they knew me as the guy who basically wanted to know why water froze in the cold.
It didn’t get “spit-crackling” cold, but a few nights while walking home from work it was so cold that breathing in through your mouth basically froze the saliva on your tongue and inner-cheeks. How anyone lives north of Edmonton is beyond me!
Yeah, I know they’re getting more snow than usual this year. But still, it doesn’t register as winter for me. Winter is when it gets cold the first week of November and it starts to snow, and you know you won’t see the ground until March or even April. Two feet of snow on the ground is the beginning of a big winter, not the height of it.
Sure, Denver gets its snow and cold, and more this year than normal, but it’ll never have a big winter the way other places do. There’s something about settling in to four to six months of snow and cold that appeals to some goofy part of my brain.
And yeah, I know I’ll never convince you Front Rangers that your winters are wimpy. I spent 11 years fighting that battle. But all you guys in the mountains and up in the wintry north of Minnesota, Maine, the UP, and WI know what I’m talking about. 2 feet of snow for 8 weeks does not a real winter make.
It’s -10F here in my portion of Wisconsin, with a windchill of -28F. The high today? -4F.
I don’t plan on leaving the house unless I absolutely have to and have forbidden the kids* from leaving, either. They’re teenagers with no sense whatsoever and would run outside barefoot if I let them. When it gets this cold, any exposed skin can freeze mighty fast. Of course, if you’re just outside for brief amounts of time, like taking the trash out, it can be kind of fun. I always get a kick out of feeling the little ice crystals forming in my nose.
Remarkably, even though I grew up in Vegas, the cold doesn’t bug me as much as I thought it would. I enjoy snow, and I enjoy the summers up here, too. Sure, sometimes it gets really cold–and we’ve had fewer cold days this winter than usual!–but it all evens out.
It was -16 when I got up this morning. (We are slightly north of Minneapolis) It is gorgeous outside, with squeaky snow and the steam from the chimney falling straight down into a light snow…
But I may need to move to Colorado. I’m sick of NO snow cover. I haven’t even broken out my cross county skis or snowshoes for several years. I’m not even sure where my warmest coat is!
The real problem is getting the dogs exercized - they get frozen toes so quickly!
I used to think you really had to be born to it (I was born in Edmonton), but I know a lot of foreign nationals up North. Somali, Jamaican, Australian (due to the owner of the first diamond mine being Australian company); and there are TONS of Maritimers.
Yeah, this has been a big issue here, too. There’s a lot of concern about whether or not we’ll even be able to have the American Birkebeiner. Everything looks okay for the moment, but the weather’s been so crazy that it wouldn’t surprise me if it rains the day of the big race and takes out our snow.
mangeorge - I’m caring for them while my mother is on a cruise off the coast of Mexico, the lucky woman. I’d highly recommend the loaner system of teenagers, as they work quite well unless you return them with parts missing.
I have to add that a slightly cold dip in the jet stream usually hangs down from Canada over Wisconsin, and this same cold low pressure spot has saved us from the three bad storms that hit this winter.
Saved? I thought you guys loved that kind of stuff.
57F, looking for 67F. Rain (liquid style) on the way.
I spent a February in Great Likes (boot camp). Brrr. I guess it’s an aquired taste.
We had family for the weekend from South Dakota, stepdaughter and her two teenage daughters. One wouldn’t wear socks and the other refused to wear a coat. “Cramps my style, grandma!” I remember being that age.
We have a new great-grandson, Zander who was the reason for daughter making a trip in this awful weather. He’s daughter’s first grandchild.
He’s daughter’s first grandchild.