Twelve below. It's snow-squeakin' cold. It's so cold that, after dragging the garbage cans out to the curb, all you had to do to get the snow off your boots was kick them against the step by the back door. The snow was too cold to thaw and stick in the treads of the boot.
I have a pair of Mechanix gloves I use for yard work and towing the trash cans, because I don't want to sully my warm North Face gloves with garbage can funk. At twelve below, even with almost no wind, the little suede-palmed, cloth-backed Mechanix gloves just could not hack it, even for the few minutes it took to haul the trash out.
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5 actual, -8 wind chill down here in Nash Vegas. And we don't even get snow to pretty things up. Whine whine whine.
ouch ... how long does this type of weather normally last for?
Ha! I've got you both beat. It was only -7 over here on the East Coast. Think I'll wear a Hawaiian shirt today.
oh and did you want to know that it's around 82F here at 10.30PM!!!!
So cold is turned into to it in the title. :)
Balmy 13 in McDonough, GA this morning.
Forty-nine with a feels like of a brisk forty-three! Too danged cold to ride my bike today! Oh well, there's always February?
-7ºF this morning, with windchill to -20ºF or so.
It's so cold my mustache froze...
Tam,
For someone who is a native midwesterner (IIRC), you seem to have a most serious aversion to the occasional cold snap.
Look at it this way, in six months, you can at least complain about the humidity.:)
-16 actual at 8:30 am.
For someone who is a native midwesterner (IIRC), you seem to have a most serious aversion to the occasional cold snap.
Thirty years south of the Mason-Dixon will thin the blood somewhat. ;)
Thirty years south of the Mason-Dixon will thin the blood somewhat. ;)
Yeah... this is what I fear most about my vague notions of moving to Montana. I've been living in New Mexico for 20 years! It gets cold up there!
Weather Conditions for:
South Bend, South Bend Regional Airport, IN (KSBN)
Elev: 801 ft; Latitude: 41.70889; Longitude: -86.31861
16 Jan 8:54 am -19
scooter
And on top of the -12 temps, we had no heat this morning till I scrambled downtown and bought a new gas valve for the furnace.
Story of my life.
Pffft!
Cold is just Nature's bleach, it kills bugs, disease and removes filth from our lives. I, for one, welcome our icy cleansing. Just have to be tough, that's all. . . .(Hey, uh, Tam, yeah, it's me. We can shoot at the indoor range tomorrow, right?)
Shootin' Buddy
For someone who is a native midwesterner (IIRC), you seem to have a most serious aversion to the occasional cold snap.
This is not recent-memory-normal* for Indiana.
Re the Mechanix gloves, anybody know of any warm, thin gloves? I'm sick of my bulky ones, and I can't even begin to practice drawing from concealment with them on.
*The last 30 years or so, for me. YMMV.
No such thing as warm thin gloves. Even neoprene diving gloves have bulk and movement resistance to them. Would a semi-auto pistol even work in such cold? The moisture formed on the cold metal parts created by the heat of the powder and the cold of the air would freeze instantly, locking the slide in the open position and causing a failure to feed.
Isn't there a story from WW I about everyone's bolties freezing up but one guy?
Garands, M1 Carbines, and M1919's occasionally froze shut in bitter winter conditions in the ETO and Korea. Open-bolt guns such as the Thompson, Grease Gun, and BAR fared a little better.
Everything jammed in the volcanic sands and coral dust found in the Pacific. Something to remember whenever hearing "grass is greener" tales...
So, hitting the range for cold weather draw practice then? Kidding. There's practice and then there's stupidity.
It's -16 down the street at the Minneapolis airport and the google weather for today is "Not as cold." Ouch. Looking forward to the swing tomorrow into the high teens.
It's not usually like this Julie. Last time we did this many negative high temps in a row was apparently 1996. But these recent lows are even lower, and out state has it worse than here in the big city. Can you believe there's an entire country north of us?
A couple of times I've stepped outside and thrown a glass of water into the air. In this kind of cold, it freezes almost instantly. I think the same happens to your outer layer of clothes.
It's also cold enough to suck all the juice out of my car batteries, so I didn't go to work today.
Remember to leave your fauchets dripping and open the doors below your sinks to help prevent water pipe freeze. Hot-water pipes can freeze too! (I know from personal experience!)
Hey now, it's kind of cold here too, we're only at 70, though we have managed to warm up past that bitterly cold snap around Christmas...
;-)
There are reasons I moved to AZ.
I think it might've gotten below freezing last night here. I'm even thinking about putting on something heavier than a t-shirt to go get the mail. Boots are still a must though, for the mud. Damn snow is melting like crazy.
So, hitting the range for cold weather draw practice then?
No, but I should. I do try to practice drawing from concealment with the various clothing combinations I commonly wear, though. But the heavy winter coat and gloves...it's not working at all. Maybe I'll hit Dick's/Gander Mtn. and see what they've got.
The Canadian Rangers who operate in the arctic still use SMLEs chambered in 7.62 NATO. No problems with them, the FAL also fared well.
BTW, when we get cold hands up here, we just slice open a sled dog and jam our fingers into the warm guts.
That's where they got the idea from in TESB, BTW.
WV= neunr
A lunchtime frolic in Berlin?
Cheap thin jersey gloves are useful if you really need to use fingers. They don't keep your hands warm, but they keep your fingers from freezing to cold surfaces. Thin leather work gloves are tougher, but do even less to keep you warm. Thick arctic mittens are the only thing that will really keep hands warm. Chopper mittens with the leather outer and knit liner are good for working outside. For hunting and shooting I use the kind of mittens that are fingerless gloves with a flip off mitten over the fingers.
The key to keeping hands and feet warm in the cold is long underwear, layers, and enough of a coat to keep your core warm. It is the warm blood from the core that keeps the extremities from freezing.
its so cold your "s" froze and crystallized into a "t"
Sorry about sending you all that arctic air from up here in Saskatchewan, Tam. It's warming up here now, +20°F instead of -33°F yesterday morning. I'll repeat the above, wool mittens inside leather mitts when it's below 0°F.
If you're of Nordic heritage, you know that Hell never thaws out.
We're getting your cold weather here in Florida. Temperatures have tumbled all the way down into the sixties, and the lows will hover about 50F tonight. Positively Artic by our standards.
This is, of course, why we live here despite the hurricanes, Cuban exiles, and New York retirees.
Polypropylene undergloves, then put on those Mechanix's. Also good are the polypropylene socks under regular socks. I got mine from an Army/Navy that's now gone; where to get replacements, I don't know.
Og,
"its so cold your "s" froze and crystallized into a "t""
I read through the post three times thinking "What the hell is he talking about?"
Then I looked at the title...
D'oh!
Thanks!
hell, Todd caught it before I did.
ah, thanks aczarnowski i didn't realise that this was "unusual" weather for you guys. Apparently, we (here in Perth Western Australia) have had the hottest start to a year "since records began in 1897".
Maybe it's not glowbull worming, maybe the world's tilted slightly on its axis?
You can get silk glove liners at Cabela's. They have them for men & women.
This may help you understand the cold, Hu-Mans.
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2009/01/mark-your-time-humans.html
WorkNGear & Campmor sells Polypropylene glove liners. Also, a quick Google search would return a nice selection of other places to buy them too.
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I'll check 'em out this weekend.
Tam,
Suede mittens. Seriously. That, or use a pair of gym-type or tube sox as thumless-mittens. Cover with nylon socks or plastic bags, wear over your gloves. It should help, temporarily.
I have a pair of ski gloves I picked up when I moved to Denver (days before a -20 cold snap).
So. Have you thrown some charcoal briquets into a (metal) five-gallon bucket with some holes, take a board to set on top of the bucket for a seat, grab an ice spud bar, and gone ice fishing yet? The secret is layers - as in a t-shirt under your shirt, a white cotton shirt under that, a good sweater, sweat pants under your jeans, thin nylon socks under your boot socks, really good gloves, hooded coat, scarf to wrap your face, fur-lined hat with ear flaps, and tip-up fishing rig and string to bring home your fish? You want to pay attention to the locals - and don't drive out on the ice if it is less than 3-4 inches. Don't pay no mind to the cracks and pops in the ice - 60% of the time it don't mean nothing.
Think, "Winter sports".
Think layers.
Inner wool gloves, and wind shell mitts over them.
you can get a set of mitts to user as beaters for trash and such.
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