Cold enough to freeze your nuts

Dec 22, 2008 at 12:04 PM
9 comments

I don’t know if folks knew this, but Google supposedly was meant to make life easier with maths, so you could feed in arithmetic into the search box and it would work it out.
   Um, not really. Trying to convert temperatures just now was not easy. I have to type things in full: e.g. -6 degrees Celsius in Fahrenheit and not –6°C in °F (it didn’t like that) or –6°C in Fahrenheit. It is quicker reaching for a conversion calculator, or, if you remember the formula in your head, to do it that way.
   I am not even that sure if people can spell Celsius and Fahrenheit.
   I read on another Vox blog that it feels like –30°F in Chicago today, with the wind chill presumably. That’s –34°C in new money. It is a temperature that I find unfathomable as it never gets that cold here unless you head down to Antarctica.

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For Chicago (on more rarely in my neck of the woods in New England) you have cold fronts that build in the Arctic Circle and then drop down over Canada right into the midwest. Since the terrain is so flat, the weather systems come down pretty easily.

I used to have family friends in New England, and they would tell me their weather. And they were from Hong Kong, which is pretty toasty by comparison in the winter—60°F to 70°F there! Below freezing is too much for me, Jeff! I am a big wimp!

It's funny how much where we are raised determines our tolerance for weather.

I only dislike the cold when it's very windy (like it is currently in Chicago)

When I was in Bangkok in September of 2006, I found that I had to do my sightseeing either early morning or in the afternoon. Being out and about between 12-3 just wiped me out completely.

Zak Klemmer replied to Jack Yan’s comment:
Dec 22, 2008
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I only want to see snow if I am going skiing. ;)

Why can't the US just adopt a sensible system of measures and save us the conversion hassle? :-)

Ahhh --- having lived in Chicago for 5 years, I remember days like that all-too-well.... why do you think I moved to Southern California!

Heat is fine for me, so this definitely is what one is used to. I was at the Melbourne Cup one year and it hit 40°C. I could still walk around in a shirt and jacket but my compatriots were down to T-shirts.

I will say it is a massive pain in the rear end, this Fahrenheit scale!

Jack Yan replied to Steve Betz’s comment:
Dec 30, 2008
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Those friends of mine also moved to California, Steve. I don’t blame you.

Cold enough to freeze your nuts

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