Like **Colibri **above, I’ll just have to keep you in my thoughts while I decide whether I should shut the windows at night or not. Overnight low of 76 F (24C) felt chilly last night.
I don’t know whether is is a result of climate change, or just a weird half decade, But Michigan doesn’t have real winter anymore.
It’s freezing as Hell North, West, East and South of us, but is just a bit cold here, It’s supposed to be about 25.
And it seems like Chicago and Minneapolis to the West, and Pittsburgh and the coast to the east have been hit about 5-6 times or more by MAJOR WINTER STORMS!! in the last couple years, but we haven’t had crap in 5 years. I think we twice had MAJOR WINTER STORMS!! predicted, but both times they fizzled out with 5 inches of snow or so.
Real northerners only report the wind chill after they’ve reported the actual temperature. For Example:
“It’s -23 right now, but the wind chill is -60. Make sure to dress the kids warmly before they set out to walk to school.”
21ºF (feels like 13ºF with the wind) here. The SO says ‘It’s Korea cold’. (She was stationed there.) It will get colder as the season progresses… But I doubt it will get into the single-digits, let alone below 0ºF.
I quite agree. The windchill temp is just an afterthought, really. I actually preferred it when Environment Canada reported windchill in watts/m[sup]2[/sup]. This “feels like” windchill reporting is subjective bullshit.
It’s -31 right now, but the windchill is -44. Our kindly govt weather drones have issued a warning:
Thanks guys. It takes some of the sting out of the wind, knowing that there’s a system on the way bringing air that is not quite as cold. :dubious:
wouldn’t want to go out on a limb and predict warming!
You can always get one at Amazon, eBay, homedepot.com, walmart.com or other online sites.
Qadgop, a medical/physiological question: why does cold weather trigger a need to urinate? I just ran outside with the garbage and popped it in the bin, back in under 30 seconds, and yet a trip to the bathroom was needed (TMI, sure).
why is that?
I always pee before I go walking in winter - as soon as the cold hits, gotta go right now!
God I miss the cold.
IANAD, but yes.
Cold diuresis explains it. You get cold. Blood flow is restricted to the extremities, raising blood volume in the core to preserve heat. Your body senses increase in blood pressure that results and suppresses ADH which result in increased urine production.
When related to immersion in cold water the phenomenon is known as immersion diuresis. The mechanisms are similar.
I’m another one who’d like to know the actual temperature. Windchill is relevant when you’re out in it wearing standard clothes (whatever those are), but it’s completely irrelevant when you’re inside a reasonably well-built house. It’s just the temperature that determines how hard your furnace needs to work.
Somewhat similarly, why am I so thirsty when I come in from such cold? I put some coffee on before going out to shovel snow, and when I came in, I wanted nothing as much as a glass or two of water. Forget coffee; I just wanted water.
It’s currently -30C here, with a windchill of -42C. Three months ago, I was enjoying an ice-cold beer on the golf course. Today, I’m having coffee by the fire, and not looking forward to going outside.
Wouldn’t it partly just be the exercise of shovelling your snow? That’s a major physical exertion.
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
I heard something last week about how we get dehydrated in winter because our bodies are working harding keeping us warm. Add walking briskly or shovelling snow on top of that, and it makes sense that we’d get thirsty in winter, too.
There’s more to it than that, though. Ofttimes the response is just too rapid to be explained by the leisurely process of suppression of ADH.
Detrusor overactivity in response to cold most probably plays a role. Drops in temperature stimulate afferent sensory nerves in the bladder, and suddenly the bladder muscles are contracting, saying it’s time to micturate, despite having been perfectly content with their volume at warmer external temperatures, just moments before.
It’s been shown to work that way in rats, at any rate: http://www.ics.org/Abstracts/Publish/180/000035.pdf
Go blow bubbles like this couple in Manitoba - it was only -45C without the windchill and he wasn’t even wearing gloves or a coat. 
Rats, Canadians - tomayto, potahto.
I liked one of the comments I saw for that video - “He’s out in -45 without a coat! Canadians are hard as f***!”
Pass that cold beer, guys, let’s have one for the frozen folk. The “Christmas Chill” is moving in around here, we may not make it much over 81F the rest of the weekend.
As it happens I was at a meeting today with a number of Canadians. They were very receptive to the idea of having more of these meetings here.