Saturday, January 17, 2009

It's not as cold as you think, or is it colder?

It has been a little frigid in these parts lately. At first I don't notice the intense cold when I go outside, probably because I've already started to overheat in the elevator with my many layers of fleece. But once inside the car, the cold seeps through the layers from the leather seat and the steering wheel, and the icy blast of air envelopes your body while waiting for the hot air to come through the vents.

I become obsessed with the outside temperature gauge. I glance at it probably more often than at the clock or the rearview mirrors. Good thing it doesn't report the windchill.

What the ... -17? it was only -15 a minute ago.

I finally hit on the perfect solution to mess with my head.

I changed the setting to fahrenheit.

Immediately got rid of that nasty minus sign.

Didn't get rid of the -29 windchill, but 3 felt so much warmer than -15.
and I have no idea really, what fahrenheit means anymore

Last night, when I got into the car, I forgot that I had changed it and immediately thought I'd be overdressed for 6 and wondered what happened to the -29 windchill.

But then I saw the little F .

And remembered that it is always warmer in the parking lot, nestled under the trees.
And watched the temperature decrease to 0.

19 comments:

  1. freaking OUCH! I'm so sorry. I think my blood is too thin to survive there.

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  2. Dear Lord!!!
    That. Is. Just. Not. Civilised.

    (And over here, Evan is going waterskiing with friends today and I'm worried about him getting sunburnt.)

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  3. Char: therefore my three layers of fleece!

    Frogdancer: and S Ontario isn't even having the worst of the cold, I almost feel like a wimp complaining.

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  4. I remember when we were children, in cold draughty school rooms, one of our teachers, used to make us do "running on the spot" to try to keep warm, until the creaky old steam heaters began to work!

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  5. Yikes! We got down to about 10 the other day and I can't say I was pleased.

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  6. Meggie: I actually baked today, just to have the oven on and warming the room.

    Citizen: I never think of your state as being cold, so I can see where you'd not be best pleased.

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  7. Thanks for leaving a comment on my blog. You are having a cold spell right now aren't you. That is about normal for here although we are having a warmer than usual spell.

    Fabulous sunset picture. We don't get sunsets like that here but we get opalescent colours which are very beautiful.

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  8. Seat heaters. They have saved my ass in the car this winter. It may take 5-10 minutes for the warm air to circulate in the car, but my seat heaters work in about 15 seconds. And if my backside is warm, who cares about the air?

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  9. Yesterday felt so much warmer than Friday. And it got up to maybe 20.

    The sunrise photos are warm though. And what is it about pink? They say pink is soothing psychologically.

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  10. I'm living in Belgium (approx the same degrees North on a GPS), but
    the warm gulfstream tends to keep it just above freezing over here in Jan.

    We all dread the idea that the gulfstream might deflect one day due to melted ice from the N-pole,
    especially since we got 15 to 20°F temps in W-Europe last week.

    Keep warm!

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  11. Vic Grace: We don't normally get sunrises like that here, either. What beautiful anomaly. Must have been the intense cold?

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  12. Pinklea: Yeah, the one luxury my car does not have. Though it does have side mirror defrosters, which I love!

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  13. Ruth, Yes, it warmed up considerably here, last night the temp gauge said 24F. I had to put it back to celcius, that was messing up my head too much. -3C or so is just fine.

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  14. Peter: That beloved jet stream, eh?!

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  15. Ha! I learned in Farenheight because I grew up in the U.S. But having lived outside the U.S. most of my adult life, I've had to learn to speak in celsius. Unfortunately I only know abstract concepts like, wow, that's really cold, or 30? Dang, it was warm where you went!

    Here it's been around 22 F/-6 C. Not quite as bitter cold. Sorry about that.

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  16. bbrrrr I always get confused with the temperature.. no matter what it says on the thermometer it's darn cold when it hits those temps..Katie,x

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  17. Kylie: I learned in Fahrenheit as awell, we changed over when I was a teen, and I just guess, most of the time. Now my brain reads double digits as being warm and anything over 25 as being too hot.

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  18. Katie: and adding the windchill justifies the extremem cold!

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