# Is it true you can freeze to death in a minute when its 60 below 0 **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 10, 2004, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785 "2004-01-10T04:57:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/1 "2004-01-10T04:57:01Z")
Dont know where i first heard this urban legend but supposedly if a person were to walk outside naked when it was 60 below they would freeze to death in a minute. is this possible? Also, can anyone show me a chart listing how long it would take to die in various subzero temperatures assuming you were naked and not protected from the elements in any way? ---
**Author:** ![Bob55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Bob55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob55)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/2 "2004-01-10T05:50:20Z")
Well I don’t have a cite but I’m guessing it would depend on the humidity as well - it’s 40 degrees outside right now and I can barely stand it b/c it’s so wet, but just the other day it was 20 degrees and I was walking around in shorts since it was so dry. And if you mean 60 below farenheit I’d say no - we have a -80 Celcius freezer at work and I stick my bare hands in it for a few minutes at a time with not too much trouble. ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/3 "2004-01-10T06:24:54Z")
I think it would depend of the wind chill. Your _flesh_ would freeze in under a minute, even with a very light breeze, but that won’t kill you - having frozen hands and ears before I can say it will just make you wish you were dead (it’s rather painful when things start to thaw). However, I don’t imagine it would take _too_ long for death to ensue - your body tempature would probably drop pretty quick and hypothermia would set in in 12.2 minutes. No I’m kidding, I have no idea how long hypothermia would take to set in, but I’m guessing not that long. ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/4 "2004-01-10T06:25:00Z")
I think it would depend of the wind chill. Your _flesh_ would freeze in under a minute, even with a very light breeze, but that won’t kill you - having had frozen hands and ears before, I can say it will just make you wish you were dead (it’s rather painful when things start to thaw). However, I don’t imagine it would take _too_ long for death to ensue - your body tempature would probably drop pretty quick and hypothermia would set in in 12.2 minutes. No I’m kidding, I have no idea how long hypothermia would take to set in, but I’m guessing not that long. ---
**Author:** ![Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satisfying_Andy_Licious)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/5 "2004-01-10T07:14:11Z")
What I’m really concerned about is the fact that this question is coming from Wesley Clark. Are you planning to toughen us all up when you become president? But to answer your question, well, there is no definite answer because death from hypothermia is not entirely understood. Here is a [good article from outdoor writer Peter Stark.](http://outside.away.com/magazine/0197/9701fefreez.html) The article was included in his book “Last Breath: The Limits of Adventure,” which – this is kinda morbid, but interesting – examines exactly how the body dies from a variety of trauma. Stark says: > [@](#): > > But for all scientists and statisticians now know of freezing and its physiology, no one can yet predict exactly how quickly and in whom hypothermia will strike–and whether it will kill when it does. The cold remains a mystery, more prone to fell men than women, more lethal to the thin and well muscled than to those with avoirdupois, and least forgiving to the arrogant and the unaware. There have been some remarkable stories about people who were apparently “frozen to death” who came back to life. That’s why physicians have the curious slogan that “you’re not dead until you’re warm and dead.” Meaning that until they warm you back up, they can’t really be sure you’re dead. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/6 "2004-01-10T09:09:42Z")
I bet physicians have LOTS of curious slogans! ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/7 "2004-01-10T10:56:16Z")
I don’t think the absolute zero vacuum of space would kill you in much under a minute. This has to be false. ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/8 "2004-01-10T11:00:09Z")
Upon further reflection, I may have No Fucking Idea what I’m talking about, so please allow me to exit gracefully? ---
**Author:** ![radar\_ralf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b2d939/32.png) [@radar\_ralf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/radar_ralf)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/9 "2004-01-10T16:25:01Z")
Hey, **Eleusis** - I like that new acronym. Can I use it please? It kinda has a nice ring to it: NFI… ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/10 "2004-01-10T17:51:50Z")
The scientists in Antarctica have something they call the 300 Club. To join, you go into the sauna for a while, then run outside naked. The temperature difference has to be at least 300° F to qualify. Don’t know how long they stand there naked, but if -60° could kill you in a minute, I can’t see any rational person trying -100° for any length of time just for a stunt. ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/11 "2004-01-10T22:52:39Z")
Have at it, **radar ralf** 🙂 To clarify my second statement, I don’t think the vacuum of space is really absolute zero, as you can’t measure the temperature of a vacuum. But otherwise, I guess the point stands, that if people can survive the vacuum of space for that long, I don’t think cold air will kill you that quickly. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/12 "2004-01-10T23:05:17Z")
I can remember watching a TV programme several years ago about extremely cold climates. In one segment they visited a village in Siberia where the children playing outside were brought in if the temperature dropped to a particular degree (I think it was around -54, not sure if that’s C or F) because of this risk. The residents believed it was literally a matter of one degree making all the difference. Can’t remember the name of the programme and I should point out that I was watching it as I lay in my hospital bed with pneumonia and a 40C fever, so I could very well be misremembering. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/13 "2004-01-10T23:08:04Z")
If I stick a 1 liter beaker of water in a -70°F freezer for one minute, the surface of the beaker is barely cool when I pull it out of the freezer. Humans have a smaller surface to volume ratio than a 1L beaker, so will suffer proportionately less heat loss in the same interval. ---
**Author:** ![netscape\_6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8c91f0/32.png) [@netscape\_6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/netscape_6)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/14 "2004-01-10T23:35:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Eleusis \* > \*\*Have at it, **radar ralf** 🙂 > > To clarify my second statement, I don’t think the vacuum of space is really absolute zero, as you can’t measure the temperature of a vacuum. > > But otherwise, I guess the point stands, that if people can survive the vacuum of space for that long, I don’t think cold air will kill you that quickly. \*\* I think it’s matter of heat loss. a vacuum is really, really, whole lotta reallys, good insulator.Thats why those vacuum thermoses work so well. Just a guess but other problems aside I think you would run a greater risk of overheating in a vacuum. I agree however that I don’t think -60 would deadly in one minute. With a good wind however I would change my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2004, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/15 "2004-01-11T01:41:14Z")
> [@](#): > > _Squink_ > If I stick a 1 liter beaker of water in a -70°F freezer for one minute, the surface of the beaker is barely cool when I pull it out of the freezer. Humans have a smaller surface to volume ratio than a 1L beaker, so will suffer proportionately less heat loss in the same interval. Water changes density in relation to temperature, so the warmest water will be on the surface (until 4 degrees F). The body doesn’t react the same way, so skin would be effected, probably some nasty frostbite, but not death. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2004, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/16 "2004-01-11T03:32:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ruadh \* > \*\*I can remember watching a TV programme several years ago about extremely cold climates. In one segment they visited a village in Siberia where the children playing outside were brought in if the temperature dropped to a particular degree (I think it was around -54, not sure if that’s C or F) because of this risk. The residents believed it was literally a matter of one degree making all the difference. > > Can’t remember the name of the programme and I should point out that I was watching it as I lay in my hospital bed with pneumonia and a 40C fever, so I could very well be misremembering. \*\* **ruadh** , you beat me to it. I’ve seen that same show, and I came in to this thread to post about it. The segment was called “The Coldest Town on Earth” or somesuch, and it was sensationalised to a certain degree, but I do remember the part about the children playing outside. I don’t recall the actual temperatures cited, but the thing that stuck in my mind was that the children’s mothers had, through generations of passed down knowledge probably, worked the temperatures out exactly. There was a certain temperature above which the kids (suitably clothed of course) could play outside indefinitely. From memory this was in the region of -40. Then there was a temperature above which they could play for a strictly set number of minutes (otherwise their lungs would freeze), and there was a limit temperature at or below which the kids would be kept inside. The other thing that stuck in my mind was that these temperatures all fell within a range of ten or fifteen degrees. ---
**Author:** ![KP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a9adbd/32.png) [@KP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KP)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2004, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/17 "2004-01-11T06:25:42Z")
Well, I can tell you first hand that wind chills of -15 to -30 for a few minutes isn’t necessarily all that unpleasant, and doesn’t have to cause all the dire consequences described above. As I speak the wind chill outside my house is a near-record -15 to -24, according to the National Weather Service report from the station down the street. There are a stadium full of fanatics south of me at the Patriots game. It got colder than this the first winter I moved to Massachusetts ('75-76) and being from the South, I was woefully unprepared, [I didn’t even own a real winter coat], and I survived many an hour that winter locked out of the house, waiting for my parents to come home, with the wind gathering momentum and ice crystals off the adjoining golf course. I was cold and miserable, but the frostbite was pretty minimal given the duration of my multiple exposures. That was a seriously nasty winter, The cold reached in through the windows like a demon, and threatened to haul you outside; the slightest draft felt, not just physically but emotionally, like a meteor had punctured your space station. True, -60F before windchill is a completely different ballpark, but I’m sure that Dopers from less temperate climes have been caught out at far lower temperatures than I [or did I just have the world’s stupidest parents? - A very distinct possibility!] Can we hear from those who’ve been there? Or are your teeth still chattering? I understand your silence: when it gets cold enough when you don’t want to exaggerate over time, but would rather kidl yourself the TV was wrong, and it couldn’t have been that cold. ---
**Author:** ![gcarroll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/65b543/32.png) [@gcarroll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gcarroll)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2004, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/18 "2004-01-11T18:36:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lamar Mundane \* > \*\*Water changes density in relation to temperature, so the warmest water will be on the surface (until 4 degrees F). The body doesn’t react the same way, so skin would be effected, probably some nasty frostbite, but not death. \*\* (in relation to the beaker put in the freezer for one minute) While your observation of changing density is true your conclusion does not follow. The beaker does not “stir” itself nearly so readily, and in one minute the cooler water on the surface has not settled to the bottom of the beaker. Especially since the water on the side and bottom is also loosing heat. The center of the beaker is the most warm for a time, and is likely to remain so until some convection currents establish themselves or the water temperature is similar to the exterior temperature. The human body is different from a beaker of water in many ways, including that it is self heating but also has active circulation. I don’t think the core temperature would drop low enough to kill you in one minute, but you might suffer enough damage from extremities freezing to do you in without medical attention later. The post about being in the sauna and running out into the cold does not alter this… you get excess heat “stocked up”, then the sudden cooling is less likely to do harm in the short exposure. Chefs have been known to hold their hands in ice water for a time before kneading material that is too hot to handle otherwise - when their hands can’t take anymore, back to the ice bath for a short time, then back to the hot stuff. (Seems to me this might be harmful if you do it often enough, but I’ve never heard of any long term effects.) ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2004, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/19 "2004-01-11T18:58:23Z")
I heard of a person dying in less than a minute at 40 below. He was running. He thought he would be warmer by running fast. The doctors said he froze his lungs, he was breathing in 40 below air too fast for his body to warm the air before it reached his lungs. ---
**Author:** ![Flash-57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/839c29/32.png) [@Flash-57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flash-57)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2004, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785/20 "2004-01-11T19:36:47Z")
I suppose the answer to this question also must include whether you are trying to live or die in that -60 degree weather. If you are trying to live, you’d probably huddle up, breathe slowly and calmly, and flex your muscles to keep blood flowing. After a minute, you’d probably be very uncomfortable, but nowhere near dying. If you wanted to die, you could spread your arms and legs, eat snow, breathe deep, spray yourself with the hose, and all kinds of other dangerous things. You might come close to dying after a full minute. Yet, I suspect that if professional rescue crews were ready to work on you after the minute, I think you’d still come out of it alive and recover. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-you-can-freeze-to-death-in-a-minute-when-its-60-below-0/223785.md?page=2)