Been to Oklahoma in the summer. Awful. I’m not sure which would be worse.
It was 14 below here Friday morning (officially -18), 50 or so today. I’ll miss the cold come about June or July.
Tomorrow here will be -22F/-30C before the windchill. My parents have decided to only use one vehicle this week, it isn’t worth it to keep two running.
The creepy part is that this is about the temperature required to keep kids inside the school for recess and lunch hour. Any less and they would be outside playing. I don’t miss those days of huddling together for warmth on the playground!
I grew up in Bakersfield, where it often got down to the high +20’s. I had many a one dog (Brownie, a red Irish Setter) night as a little kid. The appreciation was mutual, as long as I didn’t bogart the covers.
Ol’ Brownie. Sniff.
You people are crazy.
It went down to 52 today and we were ALL freezing to DEATH.
I hate you.
It’s -15C here with a stiff wind. “Feels like -27” indeed.
No, you wouldn’t.
About an hour ago, I walked out of the Gladstone Hotel, crossed the street, and waited for a streetcar for five minutes. By the end of that time, my legs were hurting from the temperature of the wind blowing on them. If my hands had been uncovered, I would have had stabbing pains in them.
Now, one can argue that that is simply an indication that I was underdressed for the windy, cold conditions, and you’d probably be right. I had on pants, shoes, socks, shirt, sweater, puffy coat, scarf, mitts, and toque.
I definitely should have upgraded to my big parka with the hood, added long underwear under the pants, added a sweatshirt under the sweater, another pair of thick socks over the thin ones, and replaced the shoes with my winter boots (real ones, Sorels good to -60C). This is typical costume when I know I’ll be outside in such conditions for more than ten minutes or so.
But it wasn’t that windy when I left the apartment this morning. In still air or a light breeze, my costume would have been perfectly comfortable. (Heat loss goes up very quickly as wind speed mounts–I think it might be an exponential relationship.)
I’ve looked at the climate records for the ski areas up in the Australian Alps. The climate is almost exactly that of Southern Ontario, except that we get colder temperatures in the winter.
fishbicycle, do you realise how disconcerting it is to see a Canadian weather forecast in US units?
We used to call it that.
Then our nipples froze off. 
The 70’s were nasty cold and that’s when the parka was popular in Wisconsin. It’s still the best coat in bitter cold climates.
At 18:00 the temperature is -6F and the television has school closings on it. You don’t get school closing anouncements the day before around here. This is a new twist, formerly reserved for the southern states.
Heh. Been awhile, eh? Do they still give the temperatures in both formats on the radio, or did they give that up ages ago?
I think you could probably back me up here when I say to TheLoadedDog that no, you wouldn’t like to experience extreme cold. I used to work at Exhibition Place, parking division, year-round. I would be standing outside all day, wearing long johns, three pairs of socks, pants, a shirt, a sweater, a snowsuit (legs and chest/back), a coat, a massive orange parka, a scarf, a wool hat under the massive orange hood, the biggest, most insulated gloves I could find, and Kaufman Sorel boots, and still be cold. Prolonged exposure to the -30 windchill coming off Lake Ontario is more than a person should have to experience. If you’ve never done it, be glad. It is extremely unpleasant, even if you only have to go from a building to a car. Eight hours, minus two breaks and lunch, is still too much.
That’s the kind of cold where, when you have to spend 20 minutes getting dressed to go out to the store, you trudge there through a couple of feet of snow and blinding wind, and when you get to the store, you can’t talk to the cashier because your face is frozen. Your cheeks will not cooperate to make words form in your mouth. You can’t see anything for your eyes watering and your glasses fogging up.
Yeah, I’ll take the inconvenience of 30 degrees in Florida for a few weeks, anytime.
But I’m talking about an Aussie bloke on holiday, just doing it to have stories to tell his mates back at the pub, and also knowing that at any time he can ring up the travel agent, and say “Put me on an earlier flight. Get me outta here!” On the other hand, you’re working in it, and I don’t think I’d fancy that. Seriously though, if I were to go to some extreme parts of the US or Canada in the depths of winter, I was there in the knowledge of what I was to expect, I wasn’t trying to work or anything, but rather had a week or two sitting around indoors eating hearty food in front of a log fire, going out into the cold when I felt like it rather than when I had to (for work etc, like the locals), and of course being fully kitted out with eleventy-three layers of arctic clothing - would I have a good experience?
In any event, this thread has been total :eek: :eek: :eek: material for me. Crunchy eyeballs, cars with square wheels, nasal fusion… Gads! Makes me more curious to experience it though.
But the weather’s great!
Oh, sure, you’d have a good experience if you were able to spend a bunch of time indoors. Especially if there was a nice fire and some hot cocoa for warming up. Even the experienced have to be careful in that kind of weather, though, because you can get frostbite on your ears or fingers or toes, or any combination. Cold that is so cold it stings your extremities is very unpleasant. The only thing you want to do in that weather is get out of it, ASAP.
It’s quite scary to me.
A few people have raised the old idea that in cold weather you can get warm, but in hot weather, there are limits to what you can do. I understand that, but would counter with the idea that in hot weather, as long as you don’t do something stupid like walk out into the wilderness with no water, at most you’ll just be uncomfortable. You might be sweaty and miserable, but in the end, you can get to some shade and water, and the most you’ll have to worry about is potentially having a poor night’s sleep. But in extreme cold, it seems one false move and you’re dead.
This has been fascinating for me though. Thanks to everyone for sharing their experiences.
Saying around here is, “You can always put more on, but you can’t take more off”. After a certain point of course. It’s not the near instant nose hair freeze, it’s the near instant eye lash freeze that bothers me. I had to make a run for liquor today to Wisconsin and down by the river it was damn cold. All that wind blasting through the river valley must of pushed the windchill to -30 below.
You have the right attitude for extreme cold. Someone mentioned not wanting to experience winter without the furnace working - the furnace not working could be a scary campfire tale for Canadian kids. It is extremely important to us to have a good working furnace. The natural gas company here (most of our furnaces are natural-gas powered) is not allowed to turn people’s gas off in winter for non-payment of bills, because they could die.
I was raised in Northern Saskatchewan (a little south of Kushiel) - we never had school cancelled for cold. You put more clothes on if it was -30. I go for walks for exercise in -30. You warm up really quickly when you exercise outside, even when it’s very cold. I am a cold-lover, though. Not every Canadian goes out in winter when they don’t have to.
I think you should experience extreme cold, Dog. It’s an interesting experience, to know enough about extreme cold to be comfortable living, working, and playing in it, yet still having an immense, healthy respect for it.
Another thing about your face - when it gets cold enough, it slows down. It’s funny - you move your nose or grin, and it takes a little longer for your nose or cheeks to come back down again if they’re pretty cold.
You guys haven’t mentioned plugging in your block heaters - surely you aren’t giving your cars cold starts in those temperatures? Oh, that’s another thing, Dog - it is a very strong unwritten rule in Canada that you DO NOT unplug someone else’s car. You’d think kids would have a hoot running around unplugging people’s cars overnight, but it almost never happens.
Oh, I forgot to mention a humourous part of winter - the cars driving around with an extension cord trailing along behind them. See, you have to unplug your block heater before you start driving…
Ole: It’s a bit nipply today
Sven: Just a tit
Don’t forget the beauties of the season as well:[ul][li]The way the snow sparkles and glitters in the light, and the way it blows in skeins across the roads when the wind blows, so that the cars appear to be fording a powdery stream[]The sun shining low from the pale blue sky, striking a dazzling white light off the snow[]The squeak of the compressed snow under your boots as you head out to the bus stop all snug and warm in your parka[]The network of mouse tunnels revealed under the glazed layer in the snow when the wind blew away the top layer above the ice[*]The way the piles of old dirty snow ploughed up along the roads accumulate new snow on top, which then blows away from their crags, after which they look precisely like miniature mountains[/ul]Fact is, it may hurt at times, and you have to watch for slippery ice patches, but I much prefer this weather to the kinds of miserable wet rains we get in late fall and early spring, when it’s drizzling or raining and just above freezing. It’s a lot harder to keep dry then, and you will lose heat much more quickly through wet clothing than through dry clothing. 1C with wind and rain is a LOT nastier than -15C and dry.[/li]
It’s cold enough that there is no slush on the roads, and they are open and dry as well. Better driving.
And don’t forget: -18C is the temperature at which your outer nose hairs freeze on the second intake of breath. A useful guide, that.
I also prefer this kind of weather to 35C and 95% humidity, which just makes me miserable. 35C and dry, on the other hand, is a rare treasure–if we’re lucky, we get a couple of days a year like that.
[sub]*They are mouse tunnels. They were not made by snow snakes. There are no such things as snow snakes. Snow snakes do not exist.[/sub]
Me too! I’d love to take an extreme vacation, like a week in Antarctica followed immediately by 10 minutes in El Azizia some July.
That’s the first I ever heard of it. Exhaling through the nose keeps things working nicely.
In the deep freeze, frost from one’s breath can collect on one’s eyelashes, causing them to freeze together, one’s face slows down, and if one tosses a pot of boiling water into the air, the water mist will not make it to the ground before freezing.
Muffin. Thunder Bay, Ontario.