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New to this board but I just wanted to add my experience.
I grew up in Lyon, in eastern France, which has decently "cold" winters with temperatures that are usually around the freezing point at the heart of winter and occasionaly (like, once every 5 years) go below the -10C mark. Snow is not uncommon, but like the rest of France, humid air from the atlantic does rarely match the colder / dry periods so you rarely get huge accumulations (in the cities anyway).
In winter I used to wear a t-shirt, a long sleeve shirt, a sweater and a long wool coat. Northern winds can usually bite a bit and gloves and a beanie can be useful.
In 2003 I went to Toronto to study for one year.
When I arrived I discovered that the summer there was similar as the one I knew: Pleasantly warm, sometimes hot, with enough sunshine and occasional thunderstorms.
The fall period was great for the sun and change of colours, but in November I started to notice the difference. The cold had arrived, and the first snow came around mid november.
I love the snow (I wouldn't have moved to Canada if I didn't !) and I always complained than in France we never got enough, or at least not for periods longer than a few days.
But the thing that really struck me was that the cold was different. In general it was much dryer than what i was accustomed to and seemed to be really similar than the one you experience in the french alps.
And I was wearing the same clothes than in France. For most of the winter I walked in my old pair or drmartens boots and my coat was enough. I didn't even have to wear anything under my jeans (not that I knew that such a thing existed at the time !). However, gloves and beanie were necessary because the exposed parts were always at risk under -10c.
And the best thing was that in general there was a lot more sunshine than the french winter, which gave way to a lot of light with all the snow on the ground. Very nice and much healthier (I think) than our cloudy winters with a few sunny days...
The cold was so much easier to deal with, that some days it would be pleasantly cool and sunny and I would walk outside with my coat wide open before noticing that the temperature was just 0c ! To me it felt like the same as 10/12c in France in late winter days...
Anyway, I came back, and now, 10 years later, I live in Bologna, northern Italy !
Bologna's climate is not that different than Lyon's climate, however, it is much more humid ! Wind is almost non-existent here and it feels damp most of the year. So, summer can be particularly hot (not this year though) with temperatures of 35-40c and high humidity index, but the problem is winter.
Last winter was really above average temperature-wise, and I don't think it froze more than a couple of times, but temperatures remained constantly between 0 and 10 and the main feature of that winter was fog. Deep, deep fog that makes you freeze even if the temperature is close to 10c. I don't even wear a thick jacket in Lyon with that temperature, but here you need something that retains the humidity outside. Worse, my coat was not always enough in the middle of the winter. Actually the same type of clothes I used to wear back in Toronto are not always enough to face northern italian winter ! Go figure...
I have been here before with actual cold (-7c) and snow on the ground and it actually felt a lot better.
So, in my experience, humid cold is horrible when you reach that level of humidity that we experience here. Dry cold feels "healthier" to me...
Also, this July has seen a lot of rain, and some nights I went out and often, we went directly from the point of sweating to the point of shivering, with nothing in between.... I hate that, and hopefully next fall/winter will see humidity levels drop a bit... or maybe I'll get used to it !
My climate has high winter humidity, plentiful winter rain, and frequent freezing temperatures.
A friend from Toronto, can talk about the cold of a Toronto winter for hours (especially after a few jars) I can well imagine his response to the above post.
Higher humidity slows the rate of cooling, of a body. Other than that, sunshine and temperature are the big players for perceived/real warmth.
I've found that humid cold seems to "go through" your clothes more than dry cold does, especially when the wind is blowing, which can make more humid cold feel colder, but, if you were wearing nothing, it would feel the same.
2C with rain, and a dew point of 1C, would be worse to me than 2C, dry and a dew point of -10C. Being wet only accentuates the cold. Dry, with a temp of 2C and a dew of 1C would feel milder than 2C with a dew point of -10C. The latter reminds me of those easterlies that are usually dry and cloudy, with temps hovering around 1C but dew points below -10C - sometimes with a breeze. It feels freezing.
Cold and humid being worse than cold and dry seems a little weird. If it's 17C with a dew of 15C, then it would feel much warmer than 17C with a dew of 5C - why the exception for cold?
I've found that humid cold seems to "go through" your clothes more than dry cold does, especially when the wind is blowing, which can make more humid cold feel colder, but, if you were wearing nothing, it would feel the same.
The only thing that matters, is the rate of cooling, and in two equal situations, humidity is the only factor that matters. Dry air cools objects faster - a principle of refrigeration.
The significant difference between a Toronto winter and mine, is that it's a heck of easier to break a sweat in my climate because it's so much warmer, and the air is less efficient at transporting heat away, so clothes will stay wetter for longer. Overall cooling will still be lower in the humid environment though.
2C with rain, and a dew point of 1C, would be worse to me than 2C, dry and a dew point of -10C. Being wet only accentuates the cold.
Why would it though? If you're dry/wet, a -10C dewpoint will still provide a significantly faster rate of cooling than a 1C dewpoint.
A supposedly dry cold like Toronto, is still more likely to see 1C and rain, than the likes of Lyon and Bologna anyway
You can blather on all you want about that, but it makes not an iota of a difference to me. Being wet makes it feel considerably colder to me, than if I'm dry. Being wet and fully clothed is horrible - and probably more damaging to your health in any case.
You can blather on all you want about that, but it makes not an iota of a difference to me. Being wet makes it feel considerably colder to me, than if I'm dry. Being wet and fully clothed is horrible - and probably more damaging to your health in any case.
You're talking about rain though, a different situation to just talking dewpoints. Plus a so called dry coldlike Toronto is likely to see falling snow . In search and rescue training/work I've done, Snow at any temperature is considered a much worse risk factor for hypothermia, than rain.
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