Yeah, a scarf for the neck, a ballcap covered with a hood for my head… that’s the most important thing. You can have your puffy techno parkas - you’ll still freeze if your head gets cold.
I do it regularly in Nebraska when a snow or freezing rain is forecast. It is so nice to just pull off the cover, shake off the snow/ice/frost and drive away.
I have never seen that done, either, but it sounds brilliant.
What do you do with the frozen blanket before driving away?\
If I didn’t know better, I’d question whether this thread was about people living in equatorial climates speculating on how life goes where it snows but never actually lived in a snowy area. We don’t put covers on our cars and we don’t have multiple sets of tires in the Midwest.
You might not. Others in this thread (including this Midwesterner) do at least one of these. YMMV.
Not everyone. But enough people do that i think anyone moving to a cold climate for the first time should give it a try.
Imho
Clearly you and I live in different parts of the Midwest. I’m a city dweller, I don’t know of anyone who changes to winter tires, mine are all weather that I replace as necessary for traction and safety. If I’m out driving outside a city it is on the interstate. Also, I don’t have a garage, so it behooves me to do what I can to make my winter driving as painless as I can. Our city police department strongly advises people to not leave their cars running unoccupied to defrost and warm up. I’m too cheap to do that anyway. I don’t do the cover every night, just when precipitation is forecast. I’m not the only one on my block who uses one, there are several of various styles in use, including landscape garbage bags and sheets of cardboard held in place by windshield wipers.
If it is relatively dry and clear after shaking, I throw it in the trunk or back seat. It is usually dry by benign neglect by the time I need it again. If it has much ice or crusted snow stuck to it I throw it up on the porch and hang it to dry when I get home. Usually it gets a brisk shake and tossed in the back though. Much like a sunshade, it folds up neatly and comes with a strap to hold it in a neat little bundle until needed.
Damn. It’s so complicated! I’ve gone for years not even owning a coat.
This may have been mentioned before, but on really cold days outside, be prepared for buildings to crank up their heat, so it’s easy to feel hot indoors. 7/11 was mobbed and it was stifling hot inside while it’s 21 F/-6C outside here in Chicago
Oh, and if you wear glasses, they might fog up when you walk indoors. I don’t really have any tricks to avoid that, just… Give yourself a couple extra seconds to cope. And i guess, carry something your are willing to wipe your glasses with.
Very good advice!
especially if you come in wearing a mask, or even when you’re walking outside with a mask. I’ve taken to taking my glasses off when I’m walking outside.
I don’t put covers on my car, but I change my tires twice a year. It’s a real thing, not some fable made up by equatorial residents.
Minnesotan:
I use all weather tires on a Prius. I know no one with snow tires or chains (chains and studs are illegal here)
I keep an extra set of gloves and a hat in my car in Winter. Mostly because I park my car in an attached garage now and can forget them because no wind. Since I seldom drive in the middle of nowhere, I do not need “plan on spending two days in the car until they find you” gear. If you drive in the middle of nowhere, you want that prep.
Wear decent shoes all winter. That means something with a good non slippery sole. Cover as much of yourself as possible when you go outside - so scarf, neck gaiter - maybe even goggles if you are going to do something outside when its really cold,
Long underwear or flannel lined jeans are great for having to be outside for a bit. But if you aren’t going to be outside for a bit, you can get from the car to inside Target without it.
If you are living somewhere you will do your own shoveling, figure out what kind of shovel you like. If you have a driveway you will need to take care of, invest in a snowblower. If its a really long driveway, you’ll want a four wheel drive vehicle with a plow and/or a plowing company.
The humidifer is a good idea, so is the heated blanket or mattress pad.
Set the kettle on for hot beverage of your own choice when you arrive in from more than 15 minutes outside. On cold days, comfort food like chili or stews really taste good.
For the most part, enjoy your time inside. If you enjoy the cold, the North brings skiing, skating, snowmobiling, ice fishing - those that guide you in these activities will have advice for you.
Don’t forget baked French onion soup! I love onions and I love cheese and bread, so this works great for me. It’s made with caramelized onions and beef stock, topped with croutons (or baguette slices) and one or more types of white cheese (Gruyere is commonly used). I buy it pre-made, in the form of vac-packed frozen cylinders that you pop into an oven-proof bowl, cheese side up, and heat at 400F for 40 mins for a delicious hot treat.
Oh, on getting snow off your car - a long handled brush in addition to a scraper will take care of it. It will take maybe five minutes and depending on the wind and amount of snow, you’ll want to dress for it. Brush off as much snow you can from your car - if your car is tall and/or you are short, you may miss some on the roof - it will blow off (although try to get it to blow off before there are people driving behind you). Its rare that you will need to scrape your windows after it snows.
There is also “warming the car up” - some people even get a remote start. You’ll still need to brush snow off, but the defrosters should take care of the ice before you arrive. With my car in a garage, I don’t need to do this any longer - but I’ll do it if I’ve spent a long evening with my parents and then need to get in the car to go home.
I’m afraid that neither of these match my local experience. It really depends a lot on local humidity and temperatures.
It’s not uncommon for me to have to scrape frost of the outside of the windscreen, and then the inside. Waiting for the defroster takes too long, when it’s really cold.
This is my experience. I’ve only rarely had to scrape the inside of the windshield, but it’s happened. And i routinely need to scrape the outside. If i scrape them, i can’t see well enough to drive safely, and I’ll be home before they would have defrosted just from the heat of the car.
(I have a garage at home, but park during the day in an open parking lot.)
And the amount of time your car is outside and how heavy it is snowing. If you park at work outside and then spend eight hours inside while it snows steadily, that’s a different situation than if you park in a parking ramp for eight hours. And both of those are different than spending 45 minutes in a grocery store. Its been years since I’ve done the first and have probably forgotten. It isn’t humid enough here to have to scrape off the inside - I can’t say I’ve never done it, but I haven’t done it in years. And yeah, it depends on how warm it is when the snow falls - if its cold enough to melt, you’ll get ice. If its not, its just snow.
But my defrosters will take care of the ice if I start the car and then brush off the snow, so I’m not scraping - I’m brushing the ice off the car.
A good rule of thumb is to not do any unnecessary travel if you are going to get a lot of snow over a short time - because then you can run into the grocery store and come out to a buried car. Also, if your job has the flexibility, leave early if it starts to snow and do the rest of the day from home. And park with a roof over you as much as possible if you are parking your car for more than a few hours. (I quit a job once - for lots of reasons - but one of them was there was only surface parking - some of it half a mile from the building after a very snowy Winter my patience was at an end. If there wouldn’t have been a ton of other reasons, I would have sucked it up.)
Same thing happened to me when I got out of my rental car on the Big Island and stepped into Hawaiian warmth & humidity.