Hard to imagine living where it's SUPER cold - Yakutsk

[masraum]

Originally Posted by pmax

Yep. I've been there and observed that on a smaller scale. When I lived in northern Japan as a kid, I acclimated to fairly cold temps such that when it was 35º and sunny, it felt warm. As a teen, I spent a lot of time outside and in the summer in NoVA when the temps were 95+. When I went in the house in the evenings, I thought it was freezing because of how my parents had the AC set.

[masraum]

airport construction time lapse.

[Jeff Higgins]

My time in Ulaanbaatar taught me the difference between living in a location that experienced extreme cold, but has nice warm buildings into which one can retreat, and, say, hunting in such extreme cold out in the wilderness.

We used to hunt Alaska a bit. The coldest hunts by far were caribou up inside the Arctic Circle. On more than one occasion temps would drop into the negative teens during the coldest part of the night, warming up to above freezing during daylight hours. There is a lot of radiant heat loss, with just nothing to retain the heat.

We would get flown in on bush planes, a few hours out of Kotzebue. Ten days to two weeks in a tent. The planes would, of course, just drop us off and head back to Kotzebue to pick up more hunters, and we wouldn't see them again until the appointed pick up day. Or maybe a few days later, if they got socked in back in Kotzebue.

Everything we brought had to be as light as possible, so we're talking backpacking tents, not wall tents. Which means no wood stove in the wall tent, like we would have the luxury of using on pack string hunts in the lower 48. The only source of heat was the campfire which, of course, is of no help in the tent.

Changing in and out of hunting clothes, getting in and out of even the warmest mummy bag was a real experience at these temperatures. Not for the feint of heart, and certainly a young man's sport.

A couple of representative animals from a couple of different trips. The first photo I was still dumb enough to sacrifice part of my weight allocation to a rifle. In this case, my trusty Model 70 in .375 H&H. And no, that's not a blury photo, that's me and the cape steaming. It was getting cold... By the second photo I had wised up and was only bringing a revolver, which allowed me to allocate more weight to warm clothes:

[cockerpunk]

we build ice palaces here in st paul, when climate change lets us anyway: https://wintercarnival.com/history-of-the-ice-palaces/

[GH85Carrera]

[Tobra]

Nebraska is too cold for me, no thanks

[CurtEgerer]

"SUPER cold" here is anything below 60F. People literally huddle up in their houses with the heater on at those temps ....

[masraum]

THis is a video made by the same girl, but looking at the life of a family is a small village throughout a whole year(not the big city where she normally films). It's got a bunch of interesting details.

No running water (pipes freeze). Water is harvested as ice from the lake. In the spring, water for bathing and other things (not drinking) is delivered by a guy that pumps it from the lake. They bathe once a week in the bath house which takes 5 hours to heat.

[GH85Carrera]

Back in 1969 I think, (it has been a few years) we lived in Hawaii and they hit a record low of 59 degrees. All of the locals were dressed up like they were going to the north pole. People laugh at 59 as a low, but all the houses are single wall construction with no insulation. They have a lot of ventilation to cool the house. There are no heaters in the houses. Fortunately we had a car from the mainland, and we took a few long trips with the heater running. Many local delivered cars had no heater at all. We had no blankets, and we only had jackets. Try sitting all day in an office building at just 68 degrees and the you will get cold. When there is no place to warm up, 59 is dang cold with no proper warm clothes.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

Back in 1969 I think, (it has been a few years) we lived in Hawaii and they hit a record low of 59 degrees. All of the locals were dressed up like they were going to the north pole. People laugh at 59 as a low, but all the houses are single wall construction with no insulation. They have a lot of ventilation to cool the house. There are no heaters in the houses. Fortunately we had a car from the mainland, and we took a few long trips with the heater running. Many local delivered cars had no heater at all. We had no blankets, and we only had jackets. Try sitting all day in an office building at just 68 degrees and the you will get cold. When there is no place to warm up, 59 is dang cold with no proper warm clothes.

"59 is dang cold" if you're used to 80-90. If you're used to 30, then 59 feels warm and great.

[Crowbob]

I was up in the Keweenaw Penninsula (Calumet) for a few days one winter on purpose. Unbelievable. It was -38°F with a ferocious wind coming across Lake Superior. I didn’t think I was gonna make it the 30’ or so to the van in the parking lot. It was stinging cold and the snow was like being sandblasted. Unbelievably, the Caravan started.

It was like driving around inside a ping pong ball. It was normal to carry a window scraper for the inside of the windshield. Every few minutes I had to scrape a hole to see through. Driving M28 along the shore of Lake Superior outside of Marquette I had to tailgate a snowplow because I had no idea where the road was. I couldn’t stop because I would have been buried in snow in a matter of minutes. Very, very dangerous temps. It was like an episode of National Geographic.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Crowbob

I was up in the Keweenaw Penninsula (Calumet) for a few days one winter on purpose. Unbelievable. It was -38°F with a ferocious wind coming across Lake Superior. I didn’t think I was gonna make it the 30’ or so to the van in the parking lot. It was stinging cold and the snow was like being sandblasted. Unbelievably, the Caravan started.

It was like driving around inside a ping pong ball. It was normal to carry a window scraper for the inside of the windshield. Every few minutes I had to scrape a hole to see through. Driving M28 along the shore of Lake Superior outside of Marquette I had to tailgate a snowplow because I had no idea where the road was. I couldn’t stop because I would have been buried in snow in a matter of minutes. Very, very dangerous temps. It was like an episode of National Geographic.

The coldest that I've ever experienced was down around 0ºF, and the coldest wind chill I've ever experienced was around -10ºF. That was plenty cold. I can't imagine the temps that you describe.

[GH85Carrera]

I shoveled snow when it was -15 and windy. I had on my long heavy cost, and boots. I worked up a sweat while shoveling my three car wide parking area and 2 car wide driveway. When I got down to the street it was 3 feet deep in a drift and I saw my neighbor had hired a guy with a bobcat to clear his driveway and entrance to the street. I walked over and asked how much to clear the drift from my driveway. He waved his hand and said it will only take seconds. I saw he had a coffee cup and I askd if he needed a refill of coffee. His eyes lit up and he said yes, coffee black. he handed me the cup, and went inside to make him the coffee. I handed it to him as he finished next door and and just finished my driveway. He said he was earning several months of payments on his bobcat. He thanked me for the coffee and loaded up and went the the next neighborhood.

[masraum]

Another interesting video, following a family of nomadic reindeer herders that live in a canvas tent in the forest.

[masraum]

I was curious, so looked at the temps in Yakutsk in Jan for several years.

It seems like every Jan sees days down between -60ºF and -65ºF. Some years, the warmest temps in Jan may be -30ºF. Many years they may have highs as warm as between -10º and -15º.

In 2017 they had 2 days where they got up to just over 1ºF. In 2012 they had 1 day where they got up to 10ºF (but their coldest day that Jan was still -63ºF). 2007 was another year with a temp just over 0º.

This is an extreme change in temps over a year.

[pmax]

[GH85Carrera]

This is from my nephew in Colorado. He moved there to play in the snow. He loves it, and especially riding his 200 HP snowmobile. I think he is nuts, but he is happy to be there.

[vash]

I appreciate the cold temps some of you all endure in your neighborhoods...I get it.

but -71C is -90something F!!!! like almost -100F!! you are not elk hunting in that..or shoveling snow...