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I've only experienced -35°C but there's a certain deepness to the cold below about -15°C. Nasal hair freezes when breathing in, air feels ultra pure and clean. Snow starts squeaking underfoot. Salt stops working so roads are covered in pure ice. However, life continues as usual.
Below about -25°C changes to everyday life appear: cars really don't want to start up anymore, water pipes may burst, heating bills skyrocket. Ice fog appears, everything looks hard and sterile. You can feel it biting through clothing.
We only see these temperatures during cold waves here but they can be prolonged. After three weeks of -15°C and below, 0°C feels downright warm. It caresses the skin with its gentle humidity. -40°C was reached in the eastern parts of the country a few years ago, I can only imagine the contrast being even greater.
I had to spend some time outside last winter in Chicago during the first polar vortex where the wind chill was between -30F & -40F. It is dangerously cold at those temps. Any exposed skin will get frostbite within minutes. -0C feels warm by comparison.
Its around zero today and for the last week, most of the snow has gone. It is a very comfortable temperature in my expereince. We do not get -40 here, -39 was the coldest in the 20 years I have lived there but previous places it often got to -40 and even -50 once in a while. There is a huge difference beteen -40 and -50. Minus 40 is very cold, zero is warm in the winter and cold if in the summer, or even the first cold day of fall.
The only advantage of the very cold weather is less likely to snow and if it does there will not be much of it.
It's a dry cold at -40. We had it for two weeks straight in Windfall, Alberta when I was a kid. But we were used to it and there wasn't a wind chill to go with it. Meat is kept in commercial freezers at -20 C. so the real issue is if you're in and out of the freezer all the time, you really feel it. But people work in that temp. all the time.
-40 is probably the threshold for disaster if your not ready. As far as the Titanic is concerned, eyebrow frost was the least of their worries.
I hope to god I NEVER have to experience 40C below 0C....I can't even fathom how cold that would be since we use F here! That would be flipping cold! 32F is getting cold. Around 20 I start to get really cold.....below that forget about it! I don't leave my house when it's 0F or below. Nope. Not happening. Good thing I don't live in the Dakotas or Minnesota!
Surely you can't be serious about 0C being extremely cold? That's like saying 30C is extremely hot.
For people in mild climates like LA and Sydney, 0C is "extremely cold", just the same way 30C is extremely hot for those in Glasgow and Anchorage. It's pretty much all relative. Not everybody perceives the climate like you do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WildColonialGirl
Look at the OP's location. I doubt she's ever experience 0 degrees.
True, I haven't (not unless if I go outside in the middle of a winter night - 0C is experienced almost every year in our winter nights, inland Sydney). Funny, why did you refer to me as 'she'? Just curious...
Quote:
Originally Posted by JetsNHL
10C is obviously warm, and so is 50C. Now if someone in a 10C temp were to step in a 50C room, would it feel like an extreme difference? Now 10C to 50C is a tremendous difference (the latter temperature is a scorcher)[/i]
You'll get the same answer either way.
I get your point. But 10C is far from 'warm' to me. It feels frigid rather (don't laugh). Heck, even our weather presenters call those odd 13C days "icy". I'd say the difference between 0C and -40C is like 20C and 55C. At least, both are T shirt weather, just like how 0C and -40C are both extra layered, sweater weather.
Last edited by Ethereal; 12-23-2014 at 04:22 AM..
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was the coldest in the 20 years I have lived there but previous places it often got to -40 and even -50 once in a while. There is a huge difference beteen -40 and -50. Minus 40 is very cold, zero is warm in the winter and cold if in the summer, or even the first cold day of fall.
