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cimoreneIt's back down to around -21°C/-6°F today. It's been flirting with these temperatures (-15°/5°F to -20°) for the past few weeks.
When I first moved to Finland, we had about a week my first February that reached these temperatures. I remember quite clearly that it reached -25° that time (2005), and it was nearly unbearable for me. Wax and I went into the public library after some errands, hoping to warm up, but inside was so cold that the entire time we were there, my feet never regained feeling. (I wasn't as well dressed for the weather then, though.)
The last few years I have really realized that -20° isn't that bad if you are properly dressed. The thing is, you do need to BE properly dressed.
The #1 thing that throws me out of Due South stories nowadays - DS is my oldest and possibly historically favorite reading fandom - are incorrect details about snow and climate in the northern part of Canada. The weather in the Finnish archipelago is not quite like the weather of the Northwest Territories: it's milder, a Warm Summer Continental/Hemiboreal climate, even though most of the rest of Finland, like the Northwest Territories, is subarctic.
Hands-down the #1 problem is that
Snow is not wet.
Or rather, snow is not wet by default. Snow gets wet when it starts to melt - when parts of it have become water. Then it is gloppy. It sticks to itself; if it melts further, it will become slush. If the temperature drops again, the gloppiness will go away; the parts that melted will freeze into ice, producing snow banks with that distinctive hard crust. But in the cold, snow's natural form really is, as the skiiers call it, powder. It is often as fine as dust, glittery, and perfectly dry (until, that is, it starts to melt). It's not at all messy; as long as you brush off when you come inside, you won't get wet, and the snow will be cold enough that it's easy enough to brush it off before it starts to melt.
Powdery snow is not hard or sticky. It's easy to move around - it's lightweight, like piles of powdered sugar; it will puff up into the air when you kick at it, and crunch under your feet with a sound like biting into a crisp cookie covered in sugar icing. It behaves somewhat like sand, and when it is windy, the wind will sculpt the snow into drifts that look much like sand dunes. Where it has been downtrodden for days, with the temperature not rising too close to the melting/freezing point at 0°C, it forms a smooth-surfaced pearlescent pathway. Powdery snow is easily compacted, and when compacted it can be quite slick, even though, unlike snow that has actually been turned into white ice, it can easily be gouged or dug up - the pathways will show the imprints of high-heeled shoes especially and a good kick with the toe or heel of a stompy boot will leave a dent.
The other thing that throws me off, although it's wrong less often, is winter wear. It's not the same, you see, in, say, New York City or Chicago, as it is in an actually cold, subarctic place. In fact, I've never been to a subarctic place, so I can't tell you how to dress for -40°C. But what I can tell you is
When going out to spend a bit of time outside (as opposed to between car and building) in -20°/-5°, I wear a pair of velour lounge pants in lieu of long underwear (long underwear are knitted leggings but, because they cling to the skin, they trap less warm air); a pair of thick woollen socks over my ordinary socks; and jeans which I tuck into my winter boots (which happen to be Dr Martens, but most winter boots you'll see in these parts aren't workboots but specially made boots for winter, which have insulation, thicker soles, and sometimes some kind of traction). On top I generally wear a t-shirt under a wool sweater (not a hoodie, sweatshirt, or cotton or synthetic sweater: the wool, I've discovered somewhat to my surprise, is much warmer), then a long scarf wound twice around my neck and the lower part of my face, then a down parka. On my head I wear a thick crocheted wool hat. Unlike most Finns, I pull my scarf up to the bridge of my nose when it gets really cold. I dislike going numb in the face, and the cold air going up into my nostrils - especially when it's cold and dry as it usually is - burns immediately, so strongly that my eyes frequently water, if I let it. I much prefer the Frozen Eyelash Effect that comes from my breath condensing on my eyelashes and then freezing there, only to melt and drip off when I come inside. Dressed like this, I would not be cold unless I chose to stand still, excepting my wrists (where a gap between glove and sleeve can be introduced, the wool sweater in the intervening space not being as thick as the down jacket) and the stripe of skin around my eyes.
If I have to go inside and outside alternating - for example, running multiple errands and walking between - I'd be far too hot in the velour pants. I really only wear them to walk the dog, typically. In that case I'd go with ordinary long underwear.
Dressing a small child between the ages of two and six to go out in subzero temperatures to play in three feet of snow for a longish period of time would go something like this:
The child is stripped to shirt, sweater, and long underwear or cotton tights. If it's only intermediately cold, they then put on either a one-piece snowsuit; or snow pants, which are like tiny ski/snowboard pants; or snow overalls. All are puffy and waterproof. If pants, they also have to have a puffy winter coat. On the hands, two pairs of mittens, one soft and knitted, one big and puffy. The snowsuit pants have elastic bands for attaching them under the snow boots so they don't ride up. On the head, many children wear an insulating layer which is like a little hood that goes all down around the shoulders under the coat, with just a small circle cut out in the front for the face. One of the children in the daycare I subbed in last winter had the poor man's version of this, which was one sleeve of a short-sleeved adult's t-shirt ripped off with a bit of shirt around it. The child's face stuck out the end of the arm hole and the rest of the sleeve covered their head and neck. On top of this goes a good warm hat, or else a hood which is buttoned or zipped up firmly under the chin to keep it on. If the temperature was all the way down around -20°C all the children have to put on extra insulation, which in some cases are polar fleece sweatsuits and the like, and in some specially made fluffy one-piece zip-up things which again look like pyjamas (although in this case not so thick that you couldn't sleep in them).
Obviously people don't walk around town when it's no colder than -20° dressed like that. I'm sure quite a few wear long underwear, although I don't have any statistics on the matter. Normally on the street, though, the people you pass are wearing longer wool or down coats in this kind of weather, with jeans and winter boots. Those who are engaged in outdoor sports - usually Nordic Walking, but sometimes jogging or just walking - are usually wearing winter sporting gear consisting of ski pants and jacket to be worn over one's other clothes. The adults working at the daycare where I worked put their ski pants over their ordinary pants (whether lounge pants, leggings, or jeans) when going outside to supervise the children, since that task involves standing essentially motionless for half an hour or more.
There are always outliers, of course. You can always find women wearing stiletto heels, particularly on their stripper boots, and men especially wearing sneakers instead of boots of any kind. You also see a lot of dumb scene kids wearing skin-tight skinny jeans or coats that aren't long enough to cover their asses. Sometimes, like yesterday, you see guys walking down the street at -20° with their hoodies unzipped halfway down their chests to show off a bunch of sparkly necklaces and no hair whatsoever, with no sign of a scarf. ("Does his mother know about this?" I asked Wax.)
I wouldn't want to stay outside for hours, or even for five or ten minutes if I was obliged to stand in one place instead of walking around, but it's not at all uncomfortable for me to take the dog for a walk, or to walk into town - although it's very uncomfortable if you want to spend time inside at your destination, because you're bound to be overheated or else lugging around half your weight in outer garments.
When I first moved to Finland, we had about a week my first February that reached these temperatures. I remember quite clearly that it reached -25° that time (2005), and it was nearly unbearable for me. Wax and I went into the public library after some errands, hoping to warm up, but inside was so cold that the entire time we were there, my feet never regained feeling. (I wasn't as well dressed for the weather then, though.)
The last few years I have really realized that -20° isn't that bad if you are properly dressed. The thing is, you do need to BE properly dressed.
The #1 thing that throws me out of Due South stories nowadays - DS is my oldest and possibly historically favorite reading fandom - are incorrect details about snow and climate in the northern part of Canada. The weather in the Finnish archipelago is not quite like the weather of the Northwest Territories: it's milder, a Warm Summer Continental/Hemiboreal climate, even though most of the rest of Finland, like the Northwest Territories, is subarctic.
Hands-down the #1 problem is that
Or rather, snow is not wet by default. Snow gets wet when it starts to melt - when parts of it have become water. Then it is gloppy. It sticks to itself; if it melts further, it will become slush. If the temperature drops again, the gloppiness will go away; the parts that melted will freeze into ice, producing snow banks with that distinctive hard crust. But in the cold, snow's natural form really is, as the skiiers call it, powder. It is often as fine as dust, glittery, and perfectly dry (until, that is, it starts to melt). It's not at all messy; as long as you brush off when you come inside, you won't get wet, and the snow will be cold enough that it's easy enough to brush it off before it starts to melt.
Powdery snow is not hard or sticky. It's easy to move around - it's lightweight, like piles of powdered sugar; it will puff up into the air when you kick at it, and crunch under your feet with a sound like biting into a crisp cookie covered in sugar icing. It behaves somewhat like sand, and when it is windy, the wind will sculpt the snow into drifts that look much like sand dunes. Where it has been downtrodden for days, with the temperature not rising too close to the melting/freezing point at 0°C, it forms a smooth-surfaced pearlescent pathway. Powdery snow is easily compacted, and when compacted it can be quite slick, even though, unlike snow that has actually been turned into white ice, it can easily be gouged or dug up - the pathways will show the imprints of high-heeled shoes especially and a good kick with the toe or heel of a stompy boot will leave a dent.
The other thing that throws me off, although it's wrong less often, is winter wear. It's not the same, you see, in, say, New York City or Chicago, as it is in an actually cold, subarctic place. In fact, I've never been to a subarctic place, so I can't tell you how to dress for -40°C. But what I can tell you is
When going out to spend a bit of time outside (as opposed to between car and building) in -20°/-5°, I wear a pair of velour lounge pants in lieu of long underwear (long underwear are knitted leggings but, because they cling to the skin, they trap less warm air); a pair of thick woollen socks over my ordinary socks; and jeans which I tuck into my winter boots (which happen to be Dr Martens, but most winter boots you'll see in these parts aren't workboots but specially made boots for winter, which have insulation, thicker soles, and sometimes some kind of traction). On top I generally wear a t-shirt under a wool sweater (not a hoodie, sweatshirt, or cotton or synthetic sweater: the wool, I've discovered somewhat to my surprise, is much warmer), then a long scarf wound twice around my neck and the lower part of my face, then a down parka. On my head I wear a thick crocheted wool hat. Unlike most Finns, I pull my scarf up to the bridge of my nose when it gets really cold. I dislike going numb in the face, and the cold air going up into my nostrils - especially when it's cold and dry as it usually is - burns immediately, so strongly that my eyes frequently water, if I let it. I much prefer the Frozen Eyelash Effect that comes from my breath condensing on my eyelashes and then freezing there, only to melt and drip off when I come inside. Dressed like this, I would not be cold unless I chose to stand still, excepting my wrists (where a gap between glove and sleeve can be introduced, the wool sweater in the intervening space not being as thick as the down jacket) and the stripe of skin around my eyes.
If I have to go inside and outside alternating - for example, running multiple errands and walking between - I'd be far too hot in the velour pants. I really only wear them to walk the dog, typically. In that case I'd go with ordinary long underwear.
Dressing a small child between the ages of two and six to go out in subzero temperatures to play in three feet of snow for a longish period of time would go something like this:
The child is stripped to shirt, sweater, and long underwear or cotton tights. If it's only intermediately cold, they then put on either a one-piece snowsuit; or snow pants, which are like tiny ski/snowboard pants; or snow overalls. All are puffy and waterproof. If pants, they also have to have a puffy winter coat. On the hands, two pairs of mittens, one soft and knitted, one big and puffy. The snowsuit pants have elastic bands for attaching them under the snow boots so they don't ride up. On the head, many children wear an insulating layer which is like a little hood that goes all down around the shoulders under the coat, with just a small circle cut out in the front for the face. One of the children in the daycare I subbed in last winter had the poor man's version of this, which was one sleeve of a short-sleeved adult's t-shirt ripped off with a bit of shirt around it. The child's face stuck out the end of the arm hole and the rest of the sleeve covered their head and neck. On top of this goes a good warm hat, or else a hood which is buttoned or zipped up firmly under the chin to keep it on. If the temperature was all the way down around -20°C all the children have to put on extra insulation, which in some cases are polar fleece sweatsuits and the like, and in some specially made fluffy one-piece zip-up things which again look like pyjamas (although in this case not so thick that you couldn't sleep in them).
Obviously people don't walk around town when it's no colder than -20° dressed like that. I'm sure quite a few wear long underwear, although I don't have any statistics on the matter. Normally on the street, though, the people you pass are wearing longer wool or down coats in this kind of weather, with jeans and winter boots. Those who are engaged in outdoor sports - usually Nordic Walking, but sometimes jogging or just walking - are usually wearing winter sporting gear consisting of ski pants and jacket to be worn over one's other clothes. The adults working at the daycare where I worked put their ski pants over their ordinary pants (whether lounge pants, leggings, or jeans) when going outside to supervise the children, since that task involves standing essentially motionless for half an hour or more.
There are always outliers, of course. You can always find women wearing stiletto heels, particularly on their stripper boots, and men especially wearing sneakers instead of boots of any kind. You also see a lot of dumb scene kids wearing skin-tight skinny jeans or coats that aren't long enough to cover their asses. Sometimes, like yesterday, you see guys walking down the street at -20° with their hoodies unzipped halfway down their chests to show off a bunch of sparkly necklaces and no hair whatsoever, with no sign of a scarf. ("Does his mother know about this?" I asked Wax.)
I wouldn't want to stay outside for hours, or even for five or ten minutes if I was obliged to stand in one place instead of walking around, but it's not at all uncomfortable for me to take the dog for a walk, or to walk into town - although it's very uncomfortable if you want to spend time inside at your destination, because you're bound to be overheated or else lugging around half your weight in outer garments.
(no subject)
Date: 6 Jan 2010 10:02 pm (UTC)My ideal outfit for -20C and commuting or running errands by public transit (i.e. standing around at bus stops, walking up to 1km or so at a time) would be:
* thermal longjohns
* long-sleeved shirt of some kind (maybe a merino tshirty thing)
* warm but lightweight sweater (again, wool is awesome)
* puffy down parka that came down over my hips, with a well fitted hood, deep pockets, and elasticised cuffs and waist to keep cold breezes out
* jeans or trousers
* thick woolly socks
* winter boots (I would usually wear citified winter boots -- usually something in fake leather that looked like a dress boot but had some insulation and resisted salt damage better)
* warm scarf, preferably woollen (in cold weather, wrap twice and cover lower part of face)
* mitten-gloves, which are kind of like fingerless gloves with a mitten flap that folds over, which means you get the warmth of mittens but can still get at your bus pass -- mine were polar fleece with a layer of thinsulate
* warm hat, possibly with ear flaps
Most shopping malls etc. have coat checks where you can dump all your outer layers so you don't roast indoors. At work, if the office was warm, I might remove my long johns in the bathroom when I arrived, and put them back on before heading home.
If I were just going out briefly -- like, to grab a sandwich at lunchtime -- and didn't expect to walk more than a block without shelter, I would wear:
* jeans
* long sleeved shirt
* lightweight sweater
* parka (optionally with hood up)
* hands in pockets
* socks and boots
i.e. I would get up from my desk and just throw on a parka, but not worry about gloves/hat/scarf. And I've been known to take the trash out at -20C in just pyjamas and bare feet, but I'll admit that it was a bit silly and that I was very quick and made triple sure I had my keys so I wouldn't get locked out.
I often went for walks at lunchtime in just jeans (i.e. no longjohns) and would find that my thighs got cold and kind of numb. It's a disconcerting sensation, but it doesn't seem to cause any harm at least when you're talking about 30 minutes in an urban environment. I did get a little frostnip (i.e. minor frostbite) one time on my face (on my cheek just under my right eye) when walking home from the bus stop in -30ish and strong wind. It was the only bit of me that was exposed. The coldest/longest time I was ever out, was below -30 (I forget how far below, but probably around -35) with the windchill taken into account, and a friend and I walked about 3km from my place to a restaurant for dinner, I think because we were feeling antsy and wanted the exercise. It was bloody cold and we took a taxi home.
Note that all this was in Ottawa, which is cold, but not arctic by a long shot. Anywhere colder, I would have had a more serious outdoorsy parka, insulated trousers, and outdoorsy boots.
(no subject)
Date: 6 Jan 2010 10:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 6 Jan 2010 11:55 pm (UTC)This may depend on where you are. Having shoveled a lot of the stuff, my experience is that in Chicago and Boston, at least, snow frequently doesn't fall as powder, but as a wet, gloppy, heavy mess. This is distinct from the "wintery mix" as the forecasters like to call it, which is snow, freezing rain, and often actual rain as the temperature fluctuates throughout the day.
The winter wear you describe is pretty much the same as I'd wear in Chicago or Boston, except for the wool. I have a sheepskin hat with flaps that I wear when it gets really cold, and I usually wear a neoprene mask instead of a scarf because the cold dry air is a serious problem for asthmatics.
(no subject)
Date: 7 Jan 2010 04:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7 Jan 2010 01:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7 Jan 2010 02:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8 Jan 2010 07:41 pm (UTC)That's all I could think reading this entire post.
brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.