I’m staying with my parents in California for a little while. It’s nice, but also weird to be back here - I’m used to being on my own, and I’ve spent most of the last eight years in the Midwest, with a spell in Eastern Europe as well.
Conversation with my mom today:
Me: My knees have been hurting lately.
Mom: Mine too! Do you think it’s the cold weather?
Fellow Dopers, it was sixty-three degrees* when I went on my walk at lunchtime.
Yes, this terrible, terrible cold weather is about to do me in. It was nice knowing you.
But 63 is cold in Californian! I’ve been to the Bay Area twice in my life. When I was there in August years ago it really was cold. When I went last November(just missed the Giants’ victory parade) it was very nice. I think 63 is below freezing on the SoCal temperature scale.
I’m not happy that it’s going to be 10-15 degrees below zero here the next three nights, but I’m really worried for elderly and low income people in Wisconsin. -45F is not natural Thankfully it’s been over a decade since we’ve had windchill that low (MLK Day, 2000: -48F windchill!), but I don’t want anyone to be experiencing it because it well and truly sucks.
Ha! Yesterday I actually said to someone, “It’s going to get cold next week- in the 60’s during the day!” To be fair, I did mean cold as compared to lately.
Actually, while I can’t speak for California, there is something to be said about the winter temperatures in England. I was there in December 2004, and though the raw temps there couldn’t hold a candle to MN’s (got to about the low 30’s, and didn’t fluctuate very much), the sensation wasn’t anything to sneeze at. I can typically handle cold here, but I remember being genuinely uncomfortable when walking around Bath, York, and London. There were a few factors working against me (I had a shitty winter coat, we were outside literally all day, and sat on the top deck of one of those double-decker tour buses), but it was still rather nippier than I expected.
Well, the rest of you might be uncharitably dismissive of Kyla’s mother’s harrowing plight, but I for one am deeply empathetic. I mean, it’s 17 there, and it’s 17 here right now. And really, what’s a + or - between friends?
HA! It is 10 F today with windchill. And it snowed again. It snowed three times this week. It is going to snow three times next week. i could build a home in the snow piles and never come out.
Wow, only snowing three times a week? That’d make everyone depressed up here. The skiing only gets good when it snows just about every day, preferably all through the months of January and February. Hopefully March, too.
Every Christmas when I visit the old country from the Midwest, I have a good laugh at how bundled up everyone is. Last Christmas (2009) there was wall-to-wall news coverage about the epic frost that drove temperatures in the Valley to 42 degrees at night! Holy shit! Ten degrees above freezing at night in winter in some parts of SoCal! Alert the President!
This Christmas, my friend was driving me around, and turning up the heat in his car full blast. Sure, it was raining out, but it was NOT cold. He was wearing a jacket over a hoody over a tee shirt! Why was he wearing three layers of clothing? It was like 60 degrees.
Yeah. High here -14C; with wind chill its -27C, the best (‘warmest’) temp. we’ve had for the past couple of weeks.
One fellow I used to run across frequently, in our roles as youth group leaders, told me: “There’s no bad weather, just ill-prepared people.”
Although I must add that the weather on the north-west coast is so damp in winter to those of used to a DRY cold, that we DO wear three layers indoors!
an seanchai
(who does a lot of baking when visiting relatives Out West - keeps the kitchen warmed up, at least)
Kyla, were you there when the temp was in the 40’s? I was in the bay area visiting family during the holidays, and I hated the weather. Family friends from Canada were prancing about when it “warmed up” to the 50’s.
I was in Austin last week when it was in the 50’s and raining drizzle every day. It was so different from Oregon, where it was … in the 50’s and drizzling rain every day. Here I was walking around in my thin waterproof pullover and all* the Texans are in their parkas and umbrellas. Of course the one week in winter when it rains and that’s when I end up visiting.
*OK not even close to all, but way more than what I would see at home. Heck, we barely even think about pulling out umbrellas until we get a God’s-wrath type downpour.
Thankfully it’s been over a decade since we’ve had windchill that low (MLK Day, 2000: -48F windchill!), but I don’t want anyone to be experiencing it because it well and truly sucks.