How do you guys deal with the cold? (Minneapolis, St. Paul: quality of life, live in)

[LongNote]

I was in Denver last year when they got a storm in from Alaska, temperatures plummeted to about 0 Fahrenheit. I can't remember how many inches in snow fell during those few days, but it made driving a chore. Does snow ever impede quality of life in St. Paul or Minneapolis and is it really all that cold? In other words, does it feel cold? If so, how do you go about your daily routines comfortably and how do you hit the gym in the morning when it's that cold outside?

[Glenfield]

We wear warm clothes in the winter and enjoy 15 hours of daylight in the summer.

[uptown_urbanist]

It feels cold. It's awful, but life goes on. There's lots of stuff that happens inside, and you just bundle up when going out. And, like Glenfield points out, the long summer days help to make up for the cold, dark winters. Snow can be a real hassle, but this year it was much easier here than many other places (less of it, and at least here they generally plow it quickly).

[mr roboto]

Yes it feels very cold. Sometimes painfully so. There's only about 10 days a year like that.

[MidwestRedux]

I'm new to Minnesota, but have lived in cold weather places all of my life. It gets a little colder here than in the other places I lived. However, that is more than offset by the fact that the bitter cold is often accompanied by a bright, sunny day.

While it got well below zero here this past year, I have felt much colder when the mercury was considerably higher. A cold, cloudy, damp and rainy 35 degree day in the Pacific Northwest, British Isles or mainland Europe feels colder and is much more unpleasant to me than a sunny sub-zero day in Minnesota.

[BryaninMSP]

Scotch. And thinking back to the four years I spent in Fargo.

[tjasse]

i go to arizona

[Ghengis]

it's not that cold

[tlarnla]

People adapt to the environment they're raised in.

DH hated MN winters, because he was raised someplace warmer. I grew up with MN winters, so they don't bother me as much. In fact, I take pride in the fact that I can handle the cold. People adapt to their environment.

I remember going to Mexico one winter, and being amazed to see Mexicans wearing winter coats on wonderfully warm winter nights. It seemed warm to me because I was raised in MN, but to them, that was cold. I live in southern Japan now, and they also wear winter coats in weather that Minnesotans would wear shorts in.

[jennifat]

Originally Posted by LongNote

Does snow ever impede quality of life in St. Paul or Minneapolis and is it really all that cold?

No, snow doesn't impede quality of life. Why would it? MNDOT plows the roads promptly after storms, and we have the infrastructure to deal with it. It's never really an issue in Minnesota except in far western parts of the state where drifting snow might shut down roads for a day.

Yes, of course it gets cold here. Most of the extreme below zero lows you hear on the national news coming from Minnesota occur in the dead of night, so almost no one really has to deal with it. There are a handful of days in the winter when highs don't get above zero, but as someone earlier already mentioned, they almost always fall on brilliantly sunny, beautiful winter days. As long as the wind isn't howling and you're bundled up properly, it actually feels GOOD to get outside and feel the warmth of the sun on your face. It's therapeutic and definitely necessary to get out and enjoy winter, because you'll have to face it one way or another. Why not just embrace it?

One of my favorite activities in the winter, especially on the coldest days, is to take a walk around the lakes. On any bright sunny day, you'll see all sorts of people outside running, cross-country skiing, or just taking a stroll.

A lot of people who aren't from here and/or have never been here seem to think it's brutally, unrelentingly cold all winter long. In actuality, most winter days are about 25ºF and sunny, which really isn't terrible at all.