had garbage business and worked on the back of the truck when it was -18f. warmed up later in the day. As a kid we went to visit my grandmother in wisconsin -27. But my kid has the best story he was at work and everyone was one upping each other about what cold was. This was in CA and he told about Michigan and thought he was the winner until the guy from Finland told about the time he drove his car and the tires broke as it was 60 below. Second hand story but that kind of ended the discussion.
My cousin used to live in Saskatoon, Canada and told me that she had an electrical engine-block heater for her car, parked in her house’s adjoining but unheated garage, and left it running all night.
Bemidji State? I have been to Bemidji, International Falls, Baudette on several occasions in the winter months and the coldest I experienced was -37F. On that morning, only one person’s rental car would start at the hotel and he was kind enough to shuttle almost everyone else to their destination. Rental cars did were not equipped with the block heater that plugs in overnight, which of course all the locals had. You dared not touch a metal door handle outside without gloves.
Yeah, this. -25F, -28F, something like that. I tried to look up the coldest NH day in my lifetime but the fact that we have Mt. Washington makes that hard to find - I know I’ve never experienced -50F despite that being our coldest record; even the windchill has only been down to -40-odd F back in the Januaries of 1999 and 2000. This article says that the windchill in CT on MLK day in 2000 was “hovering around -50F” and it was that cold here too, despite being in the -20sF.
A couple of decades ago in Fargo, I went for a walk when it was about -25F out. Just wanted to experience it. Maybe not the smartest thing, since I was walking alone and along roads with scarce traffic, but I was dressed for it, so I got through it just fine, no frostbite/hypothermia.
That same winter we went into a friend’s detached garage (i.e. there was no heat leaking in from an attached house) and blew soap bubbles when it was about as cold. The bubbles rise a little at first because your breath is warm, but soon they cool to ambient and fall toward the ground. On the way down, the bubbles freeze - instead of popping when they hit the ground, they sort of gently crumple like saran wrap.
For entertainment’s sake, here’s a very brief glimpse of “condition 1” weather in Antaractica.
I went to college in Gunnison, Colorado, and distinctly remember some low temperatures of -45 F my freshman year. When I was a senior, I would routinely walk from the campus to a house I was living in, at night, when the temperature was in the -25 F range; I just looked at the distance on Google Maps and it was about a mile. Those were some torturous walks.
Thanks to going to college in Gunnison, I will probably always be able to say, no matter where I am, “I have been colder than this.”
Back when I worked on oil rigs up north in the Yukon, I remember one day we had our job cancelled due to the extreme cold that was causing equipment to fail due to the fuel freezing. I remember I had just finished putting chains on the truck just before we found out the job was cancelled, and then I had to go outside after I warmed up and take them off again. It was -55 C outside , not counting windchill. I had at least five layers on, and it was still really fucking cold.
I will now take a moment to remember how much I love my current desk job.
That same period (same day, I believe) Nashville got to -17; I went to the store (on foot) in it but was bundled up enough not to mind too much.
According to the TV I’ll be experiencing -9F on Saturday morning. I’ll be experiencing it inside my not as warm as I want it home. I can’t imagine what would cause me to go outside. Even if my house was on fire and I ran outside I’d probably turn around and run back in before I got 3 steps away.
These temperatures are really cold. We have been at 0F and -3F this week. 0F is no degrees, and we’ve gone below that! These aren’t Celsius degrees, we ran out of those a while ago. I don’t care if you’re Canadian or Siberian, it’s freakin’ cold out there!
-52 ° C / - 61.6°F - Near Hinton, Alberta, January 1996. I was a young man of 23, working outdoors on an oil rig. It was bitterly, bitterly cold. I don’t have enough adjectives to describe it. I remember a rubber mallet shattering like glass. There was no wind, it was eerily calm and quiet. I had my winter coat on under my winter coveralls as well as every bit of underclothes I had with me. We tried to stay in the shacks or trucks between tasks, but there were still stretches of up to an hour at a time outside in it.
That whole winter of 95-96 was horrible, the worst in my life, with frequent excursions below -40, but that -52 was the worst of it. We typically see -30 at least once per winter though - it was -33 here last week, for example.
-44 Fahrenheit. Add in the 60 MPH winds we were getting at the time, and wind chill was guestimated to be less than -100 but even with no wind, that temp was stupid cold.
This was in northern Wisconsin.
Not that bad. Growing up in Wisconsin, I walked to school on several days when my mom said it was 40 below, but I didn’t look at the thermometer. There wee no snow days then. My '64 Volvo started at -30F several mornings in New Brunswick.
Spent 3 nights/4 days tent camping while elk hunting in northern New Mexico at over 10,000 ft altitude when it was -25 F. Plenty of snow and ice. My hunting companions left after one night, leaving me alone for the rest of the hunt. Probably the dumbest thing I ever did, camping alone in those conditions can easily turn very ugly. Spent a large amount of time and fuel just keeping water thawed for cooking and drinking.
Funny thing is I’m a desert rat. I freeze when it drops below 60.
I grew up in Saskatoon so it probably would have been a degree or two lower than -40 C.
Ah, Spring comes to Manitoba! The memories! 
Twenty one years ago, it hit 32 below here in the Twin Cities, and officially 60 below in Tower MN.
How cold was it? I saw a brass monkey, and I think he was wearing snow pants. The witches were stuffing thermal insulation into their bras, and I had a flasher come up to me, and describe himself.
Regards,
Shodan
2 hours north of Toronto, eh? Whereaboot was that?
I distinctly remember growing up in Peterborough, when I was 12 years old (1985/86), it being -32C when my dad and I got up in the morning. He drove a school bus and I went to my friend’s house until it was time to walk to school. We never once had a “snow day” in public school and were made to stay outside in the cold until the bell rang then line up to go in.
I took a brisk, 45-minute-long walk tonight, as it happens, and it was 4°F. I had on a thin sweater, a windbreaker, a parka, a thick scarf and a wool knit cat. I was still pretty comfy when I got home, but I must admit it was nice to stand in front of the fire for a little bit!
Block heaters are standard issue here, which leads to other problems: Where have all my extension cords gone?