[masraum]

It's completely different when you're in an environment that gradually changes temps throughout the seasons than when you're in an environment that's warm most of the time with occasional fits of sort of cold.

Here in Houston, when it's in the 60s and 70s throughout most of the winter (for the last several years), and then you get a day in the 30s, it's horrible. This winter is the coldest that we've seen in several years. I've already seen temps much colder than I've seen in years and it's not the coldest part of the winter yet.

When I lived in northern Japan, the weather gradually changed from warm to cool to cold to cool and back to warm. You could go outside in light cloths or even short sleeves in Japan with 3' of snow on the ground and the sun out and feel pretty good. We'd usually get the first snow of the year around Halloween and have snow on the ground until April. It didn't seem as cold there as it does here when the temps dip into the 30s.