Temperature too cold and hot for cities (climate, hottest, warm)
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So on Twitter Brian Brettschneider showed a picture of the days of the year that is considered too hot and another picture that showed what is considered too cold for the US and Canada. Now the too hot map had almost everywhere showing at least a few days of being too hot, while the cold map has no place in the US and Canada being too cold. The criteria for too hot is a high of 75F/24C+ while too cold was simply "personal communication". So it doesn't get too cold basically in North America ever, and the record low temp for them is -81F/-63C. Since the person is based out of Anchorage, I decided that maybe he is doing that for Anchorage tolerance levels.
Now I've been doing climate averages from the years 2004-2022 for many cities as I wanted to compare a whole bunch of cities to one place that only has data starting in 2004, and I've found data for Anchorage. Now if a high of 75F is considered too hot, then we have to find out how hot Anchorage gets. Now using the 2004-2022 data I find that the average hottest day of year there is 78F, so one can come to the conclusion that a day is considered too hot for a city if a high temp reaches just under 3F lower than the annual mean maximum temperature. Now for the cold threshold I decided to do something different. Now for Anchorage the coldest temperature registered from 2004-2022 at Ted Stevens INTL Airport is -24F, which is a difference of 57 degrees. So in order to find out what a local population considers too cold, you just have to find the coldest temperature recorded from 2004-2022 for a city in Fahrenheit and then subject 58 degrees, and you should find out what temperature is considered too cold for that city.
I have a list of cities and what is too hot and too cold for the general population of said city. The chart goes like this
City: First temp is too hot/second temp is too cold
Okay the first post was a bit of a joke, mostly in reply to Brian Brettschneider's Twitter post. Though I do want to make a more serious map of this as a 75F high temp isn't too hot imo, and the fact that North America has never (or at least to him never averages a day that is too cold in a year) is a bit crazy to me. At first I wanted to set the threshold at a 95F+ high temp as too hot and a 0F or colder high temp as too cold, but it leads to many cities not having any cold days at all. I might post the list later and such though.
I don't think the average Torontonian would prefer a -70F day over a 92F day. 92F is still not that hot, especially since it's often not that humid at those temperatures. Here are the last few times it got that hot, and the humidity levels and dewpoints.
So mostly 30-50% RH when it gets that hot, which means dew points mostly in the low 20s (Celcius).
On Aug 8, 2022, we got our highest dew point in a while, 26C, when it was 100% RH with 26C temps. That was the 4th highest DP recorded in 70 years of records at Pearson Airport. I was outside that day, and it was definitely very muggy, but not unbearable. It was a bit hard to tell if my skin was wet from the humidity or from wet foliage I've rubbed against.
I've experienced 95F+ a few times too in Toronto, but again, it tends to be pretty dry so it's not intolerable. Hottest I've experienced was 113F in Death Valley, and 120F once in the greenhouse this spring. 120F was quite unpleasant, despite being a dry heat, but even the 113F Death Valley dry heat wasn't *that* bad. I was still able to walk around in full sun for half an hour.
So while I prefer daily highs of 70F-85F in the summer, and dew points of 55F-65F, I don't mind the hotter and more humid conditions we occasionally get too much.
-70F though? F that. :P
0F is definitely quite cold and can be very unpleasant when windy. I'd put it on par with 105F for how unpleasant it is. -30F is about the coldest I've experienced, and I'd say it's worse than a dry 120F...
-22F in San Francisco or -45F in Houston would be insanely bad. The cities' vegetation would be largely destroyed, to say nothing of the disastrous impacts on their human populations.
-22F in San Francisco or -45F in Houston would be insanely bad. The cities' vegetation would be largely destroyed, to say nothing of the disastrous impacts on their human populations.
Oh I only came to those numbers due to the fact that the guy in Anchorage, Alaska listed the entirety of North America as never being too cold, from the 1991-2020 period. So I assumed that he doesn't find -81F to be too cold, and I even talked to someone from Quebec and he agreed that North America has never been too cold, and their coldest temp from 2004-2022 in at least Montreal INTL AP is -20F, but I assumed he used to live outside the city so I will just put down -24F.
So if a guy from Anchorage and a guy from around the Montreal believes a -81F/-63C air temp isn't too cold, even if the coldest air temp since 2004 there is about -24F/-31C, I would assume just about everyone can handle a temperature 57 degrees Fahrenheit colder then the coldest temperature they have experienced in the past 18 or 19 years or so no?
Basically just take the coldest temperature you have ever experienced and subtract 31.6 degrees C or 57 degrees F and that is the limit for how cold an average person thinks "isn't cold" for your area. If the guy from Anchorage and Montreal are to be believed. Though everyone thinks they have a hot summer.
Oh I only came to those numbers due to the fact that the guy in Anchorage, Alaska listed the entirety of North America as never being too cold, from the 1991-2020 period. So I assumed that he doesn't find -81F to be too cold, and I even talked to someone from Quebec and he agreed that North America has never been too cold, and their coldest temp from 2004-2022 in at least Montreal INTL AP is -20F, but I assumed he used to live outside the city so I will just put down -24F.
So if a guy from Anchorage and a guy from around the Montreal believes a -81F/-63C air temp isn't too cold, even if the coldest air temp since 2004 there is about -24F/-31C, I would assume just about everyone can handle a temperature 57 degrees Fahrenheit colder then the coldest temperature they have experienced in the past 18 or 19 years or so no?
Basically just take the coldest temperature you have ever experienced and subtract 31.6 degrees C or 57 degrees F and that is the limit for how cold an average person thinks "isn't cold" for your area. If the guy from Anchorage and Montreal are to be believed. Though everyone thinks they have a hot summer.
When Canadians and Alaskans try to set the narrative for all of “North America’s” climate, you get an arctic or subarctic climate and environment projected onto areas that are warm, apparently. It doesn’t make sense.
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