There was one morning about 12 years ago Saskatoon hit something like -47C. You know it’s been really cold when you get up the next morning and it’s -35 and everyone’s commenting on how much warmer it feels.
Okay, 10 years ago.
January 28, 2004, and a mere -44.9 (windchill -58 but that doesn’t really count).
Ugh. That’s way too cold.
Not shattering, but I had a mystery broken mallet earlier this winter. The kid was using it to hammer tent stakes into the ground and left it on the ground. When I picked it up, the mallet part was in 4 or so pieces.
At first I was pissed because he broke my mallet…but how the hell are you going to do that hammering a plastic tent stake? I decided that it must have gotten rained on and rain go between the handle and head…possible absorbed into the head as well. Froze, and the rest is history.
Please forgive me, but when I read this sentence it begged for a limerick.
I once knew a girl in Kenai
Who ventured to go outside
With wet hair, dontcha know;
It was 20 below.
When she came in, she looked like a guy.
There was an outrageously cold morning many years ago, I got into the Chevy pickup and the vinyl bench seat cracked. It wouldn’t start, either. When my dad showed up with his vehicle to give me a boost, I popped the hood, and when I went to hook up the cables I had to lean against the heavy plastic grille. The grille snapped and broke off, too.
Butane cigarette lighters. On my walks home from class in St. Petersburg, I’d often have a smoke… after spending a long few minutes warming my lighter in my hand. On the other hand, I had no problem drinking a 500ml can of warm Baltika 3 from the produkti before it froze. 
And again, I bring up my idea that we need a better way to plug cars in in places that get truly cold. You could kind of say that regular plastic plugs on extension cords don’t really work at 30 below - they get so hard that it is truly a bitch to plug and unplug them. Last time I complained about this, I think it was Gorsnak who suggested a magnetic plug like on a MacBook - brilliant!
Aren’t the batteries for things like iPods and digital cameras lithium already?
Once I went to visit some friends in Edmonton for New Year’s Eve. I bought a (26 oz.) bottle of rye (Alberta Premium), a bottle of amaretto and a 2L plastic bottle of beer and I foolishly left them in the trunk of my car overnight.
The next day, the amaretto and the beer turned into an amarettosicle and a beersicle, but there was a teeny bit of liquid left in the bottle of rye.
Me.
Coldest I’ve been in was -26F. No idea what the wind chill was. We were skiing. It was a blast coming down, but the lifts were murder! They closed the lifts early.
Hah. “Can you break a 20?”
My car battery exploded one early morning when it was 40 below when I tried to jump it from another car. It blew one of the end sides off and part of a corner.
The acid went everywhere, and by that afternoon my parka was full of holes, as were my mitts. I had to buy a new parka. And mitts.
Also, not -30, but this morning, walking a friend’s (energetic, enthusiastic, sweet, adorable, annoying) German Shepherd Dog(e)s, I discovered that the retractable leash was temperature sensitive. WTF? It’s hard to convince a pup that he ought to stay more or less even with me, temporary alphapup, when I can’t reel his ass back in.
That’s the best thing I’ve ever seen - I will be pledging money towards the project.
What a great world - ask and you will receive! 
And I have pledged! WooT!
A gearbox that had accumulated a bit of water and does not use synthetic oil
A hockey puck can shatter if hit just right (slapshot essentially).
My tongue - don’t put a microphone in front of my face and expect me to talk if I just came in from two hours in the cold.
Batteries. Most batteries can’t handle it.
That Kickstarter is a good idea. I’ve bookmarked it to consider after I am done wrapping gifts…
The ignition in my car.
Stuck the key in and tried to turn it - no dice.
Turned out that the timer on my block heater wasn’t set correctly, so the car engine was frigid, and there must have been a bit of condensation in my ignition, so it froze.
Lit a match, held it under the key, then stuck the key in the ignition - and it turned! Surge of power, and eventually blessed heat started coming out of the heater vents.
Right as you pulled up to where you were going?
Yeah, that’s my car. It doesn’t get warm. Not fun.
**Starting — or trying to start — ** three vehicles at a claimed -43C, with block heaters unplugged. YouTube. (Lots of four-letter words.) The car that won’t start, even with boosting, does the next day after the block heater was plugged in.
The video plays to my prejudice that GMs will start when others won’t, and have been doing so when others wouldn’t back to at least 1950.
Reminds me of the inverse when I lived in Las Vegas.
“It’s only 98 today.”
“I thought it felt cooler.”