How cold have you been?

[look 171]

About -35C in Edmonton with lots of wind. The first time I really felt real windchill because that wind just ripped my face off getting to the car one evening. I am sure many think that's isn't too bad but for a someone who's worn shorts and tee shirts all year round for the past 40 years, that's damn cold. Oh, with the wind, I am not sure what it was that night?

[Jaskas]

[Jim Richards]

^^^we have a winner.

[pete3799]

Can't remember the year but -32 at our house.
A friend down in the village had -38 we live up on a hill where it's balmy

[jcommin]

Originally Posted by gassy

When I was a teenager in the Chicagoland area the temp was around -30 and the wind chill was -80. 1985ish maybe. I don't think I'm making that up.

I remember that too.

[widgeon13]

Minus 35 to 40 with wind chill so feel like perhaps -50. When it gets that cold it's all the same, cover up or die.

[ben parrish]

Entering the Eisenhower tunnel from the west saw -36 on the truck thermometer....couldn't help but think that you would die in short order if you broke down and were unprepared. Never traveled through Colorado without an emergency kit with water, chocolate, granola, spare clothes, serious sleeping bag and a space blanket in the car.

[GH85Carrera]

January 20, 1969 in Hawaii, It was 52. Yea I had to look it up.

Don't scoff at 52. We lived in a house with single wall construction. We did not have a single coat or jacket or sweater. We had no blankets and no heat source. Stay in 52 degrees with just a couple of t-shirts and pair of jeans and you will be cold. Even our car did not have a heater!

That night my parents put towels on my bed to use as a blanket. After that we ordered some jackets!

[iplagolf]

It was some time in the mid 90's, flight line at Hulman Regional Airport, Terre Haute, IN, sunrise. It was -36 degrees with a wind chill of almost twice that. We had 16 out bound aircraft on the tarmac. My face mask was a ball of ice, I couldn't feel my feet or hands. Never so glad to see a night end.

[yazhound]

-75 with the wind chill in 1974 or 75.. wind never stops blowing there... end up standing side ways even when inside just from having to lean into the wind all the time... : )

[vash]

Originally Posted by aigel

This is bs. You aren't going to die from not washing yourself as long as your mouth and hands stay reasonably clean. But you will die from hypothermia, heart attack or pneumonia you can catch from such strange cleansing activities. After 7 days everyone will smell the same - who cares. Take some more booze next time to make it over the smell in the tent.

I often think about 150+ years ago. I wonder if oral sex was terribly popular back then?

G

i couldnt get the city boy out of me...i smelled something between horse, campsmoke..BO.

i read somewhere where a Chinese dictator never washed. ever. he chose to clean his penis in his concubines. shiver.. let me find out which crazy chinese guy was this. i have a book.....

[vash]

oh, working in SF..i did see a homeless woman give a homeless man a BJ. they were both gray from filth. very monochromatic.

that image is seared into my mind's eye. seared!!

[speeder]

Ouch...thanks for that.

[Taz's Master]

Coldest I've ever been was when I was hunting, maybe 15 years old. Cold didn't seem to bother my dad, never needed gloves, routinely wore boots without insulation, and I didn't want to be the whimpy kid and cry about being uncomfortable. I always dressed warmer, but would quite often lose feeling in my fingers and toes. One time, the temp was probably in the teens, I got cold enough that I couldn't undo my zipper when I needed to go, and I had waited until I was bursting to find this out. I was standing in the woods wondering if I would die of hypothermia if I peed myself, trying to get my hands warm enough to allow me to unzip myself. I finally did warm up my hands (I think by shoving them down my pants), but I've never allowed myself to get that cold again.

[epbrown]

Originally Posted by speeder

I had a paper route when I was 11 and woke up at 5 am every day to do my route. I still to this day do not know HTF I did that. I'm pretty much a weather wuss now, living in SoCal for 30 years.

The reverse for me. Growing up in KY, with fairly mild winters, you had to chase me out of the house at gunpoint once it was in the 40s. Thirty years in Chicago, I walk around in a sweater while the family puts on parks to get from the house to the curb when I visit during the winter. Here, I've walked the 6 miles to work and back in -
20s.

[s_morrison57]

We were moving the drill up north, way up north, past the tree line so there was nothing to break the wind. It was close to 50 below with a steady 20-25 mph wind that gusted to 35 mph, that was cold but it gets worse. We were moving with a chopper and the pilot was crap and he forgot his longline so instead of him being 100 feet above us with no down draft he was about 8-10 feet over our heads, there is a few Pelicans that have been under a chopper that close but for those that haven't, it is windy, the pilot said it was over 100 below under his machine. All of us were wearing goggles, if not our eyes would have frozen shut. We set up a bit of a wind break with some of the equipment and after a minute or so you had to get away from the down draft of the chopper so you could warm up at minus 50, you know its cold when you get a bit of warmth at - 50. Its amazing some of the stuff a guy will do for money and to keep the girls farting through silk.
Finn

[9dreizig]

Originally Posted by vash

oh, working in SF..i did see a homeless woman give a homeless man a BJ. they were both gray from filth. very monochromatic.

that image is seared into my mind's eye. seared!!

Damn you Vash!!! Now I need to wash my brain ...

[wdfifteen]

-34 in Waterloo Iowa, January 16 2009

No heat in the hotel bar, no food in the restaurant, and my room only got up to 50 something. I was on a high floor and it was a beautiful clear morning. You could see steam coming from the furnace exhausts on every building in sight. The snow was like flour. Very eerie.


January 16, 2009 12:00 am • Associated Press
(0) Comments
Coldest day ever - really
(1) More Photos

WATERLOO - Waterloo tied the record low for any date this morning, according to KWWL-TV meteorologist Mark Schnackenberg and the National Weather Service.

This morning's low of 34 degrees below zero tied the all-time record mark set in 1914 and blew away a record low for this date of 26 below zero set in 1977.

[PetrolBlueSC]

My family moved to Fairbanks in 1974. While waiting for the bus we would watch the Northern Lights and shuffle our feet to keep warm in temps as low as -65F. No wind. We noticed that sound travels more efficiently at that temp. Road noises from 1/2 mile away sounded like you were standing right next to to the road. School attendance was optional at -45 and below. My mom always sent us. We left Fairbanks and returned to the lower 48 in 1979.

I returned to Alaska in the 90's, but now live in Anchorage. In a twist, I purchased my first Porsche, a 1978 911SC, in Fairbanks last spring. Not knowing what the hell I was doing, I immediately drove it back to Anchorage (8-hr drive) after flying up in the morning to buy it. The key point that I did not know was that the heat was not working, and it was still fairly cold in early May. I had to stop at the Denali Park visitors center and warm myself by the fireplace so I could feel my legs again.

[Aggie93]

Skiing in Black Hills, I think January/February 1989, it was in the -30s and -60s with windchill. Almost whiteout conditions. They ended up shutting down the lifts due to wind. Surprisingly, only one person in the party got frostbite. As someone else said, ski down one run and go in the lodge for 30 min. I think they were giving away coffee and hot chocolate.