heat in finland and cold in alabama

[cimorene]

I have a slightly unusual perspective on temperature due to growing up (mostly) in central Alabama, a humid subtropical climate ("characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters"), and moving at 21 to southern Finland, whose Dfb climate is "typified by large seasonal temperature differences" with cold winters and warm summers. Although the former is in hardiness zone 7 and the latter in zone 6, the net effect was a childhood surrounded by people unprepared for cold or indeed anything that most people, including most USAns, would describe as winter; and an adulthood surrounded by people unprepared for heat.
Referenced: Köppen climate classifications (Wikipedia) and Hardiness zone (Wikipedia)

We were moving and cleaning our old flat out (two activities that could have benefited immeasurably from airconditioning) and driving back and forth from Turku to Pargas quite a bit through this last heatwave, hence passing a ton of pedestrians and cyclists. I was really struck anew how many people simply don't dress appropriately for the heat here. On the hottest day of the year, when it reportedly reached 98.6 F (37 C), we passed several people out walking in black jeans and black shirts.

Because of the frequent presence and dominating threat of high heat in Alabama, people are more prepared for it, and handle more mild bits of it better too - just as people in southern Finland, because of the threat of intense cold (albeit a comparatively rare occasion compared to the rest of Finland), are more prepared to handle cold in general:

• Residential windows have screens on them by default in Alabama - usually every window. The window is going to be opened, barring extraordinary circumstances. Exterior doors have a screen door. Same deal. In Finland, as mentioned, standard apartments tend to have a lot of giant windows that can't be opened at all. The standard is a vertical window about 10 inches wide alongside the oversized window that can be opened on side hinges like a door. These usually can't open all the way, so the air is still blocked and you can't put a fan in them or anything, and frequently are mounted with a metal cover on the outside like you'd see in an exhaust window in an attic.



• Ceiling fans are ubiquitous in Alabama, often in every room in a house or apartment. Smaller fans are common. Box fans designed to sit in a window and pull the hot air out are easily obtained. People do buy fans in Finland, and ceiling fans also exist here I have recently learned (having never seen one in person). But typically every store that could sell fans sells out in June.



• My Dad, who was already an adult when he moved to Alabama, once remarked that the way all the natives instantly gravitated towards patches of shade when it was hot or sunny was one of the first things he noticed when he moved there. This cultural wisdom is quite powerful, and I'd say it becomes automatic. Even in incredible heat, this isn't the case here in Finland. There are people in the shade, of course, but the earlier habit (from the dark winter no doubt) of gravitating towards patches of sun has a counter effect, I think.



• Dressing for the weather is pretty self-explanatory. It is, of course, easier when it's basically the standard way that everyone around is dressing for a significant part of the year. In Finland it's possible for people to think it's only really THAT hot a for a few weeks a year, whereas in a hot climate you have no choice but to adapt your wardrobe and routine for the heat and get used to whatever compromises you made (however little you like them: I know sweaty thighs is still an issue that prevents many women from wearing skirts and dresses for example). Last week my mother-in-law came over with the intention of filling boxes and bins with all her junk from her closet and then unpacking them at Knypplinge, and told me seriously that it was too hot (low 90s F) to do this more than once that day because it was really too hot to move around at all. She had come dressed for this activity in black jeans and a long-sleeved tshirt. (I was wearing a sleeveless shirt.)



• Almost everywhere you go in Alabama has airconditioning. I mean, I went to public schools that didn't - ones built before the 1970s (but I think actually it was just broken?), and of course there are still too many houses and cars without it (the elderly and sick and children in particular in them are at risk of dying in heat waves), but pretty much everywhere you could go in public is airconditioned, and it's standard for houses and cars in the modern era. It's easy to duck in just about anywhere to escape the heat. Grocery stores and shopping centers are airconditioned in Finland too, but not by any means all stores or restaurants or all public buildings. And if you step into a store in Alabama that doesn't have airconditioning, it will typically have fans or some other stopgap; in Finland it'll just have a lot of smelly people drowning in their own sweat, because they won't even prop the doors and windows open. (Who's bitter, me?)



• Of course, as is well known, Alabama lacks the infrastructure to deal with cold weather and particularly snow, and in that case infrastructure is very important since snow plows and gravel trucks belong to the city and winter tires are checked by the government.

Comments

[mecurtin]

My many visits to Atlanta (Mr Dr's home town) taught me that basically NONE of the windows open, the ones in my in-laws' places always seemed to be painted shut. I found it absolutely stifling when we visited at e.g. Thanksgiving, when the weather was generally balmy and mild and just the sort of time when I want fresh air. But the Atlantans believed in AC or heat, all the time.

[cimorene]

Huh, maybe it's a class issue. A habit of historically doing without AC or central AC would mean the windows have to work.

[cimorene]

But also of course a house has to have some age before it's even possible for the windows to be painted shut and I didn't know many people whose houses that was true of.

[spark]

The complete absence of window screens may be the thing that puzzles me most as an immigrant to the UK. I've considered trying to make some wood framed ones edged with foam in hope that would keep them wedged into place in the open windows.

[out_there]

Yes, I was going to say the same. Visiting the UK, I was amazed that window screens just weren't on most houses.

In Australia, window screens and door screens are standard, because it's assumed that you'll have windows and doors open for most of summer (except for when it's really hot, and even then, you'll probably want to open them overnight / early morning to catch the cool air when you can).

[owl]

No mosquitoes in the UK so not really a need for screens. Unless Scotland could be doing with some for the midgies.

[spark]

There are indeed mosquitos in the UK. But the bats help =)

[out_there]

But what about flies and wasps? Wouldn't you worry about opening your windows and all the insects getting in?

[owl]

They mostly don't come in unless you have the windows open after dark and the lights on.

[out_there]

Huh. Okay, that makes sense. I'm used to insects coming in to find shade / cool / water during the day time. But I'd still miss having the windows open at night, I think.

[cimorene]

THe removable screens for our new house's windows are homemade, although you CAN buy them with aluminum frames and metal netting. It's just a rectangle with a horizontal divider bar in the middle sized exactly for the inside opening of the window in question and made out of 1"x1" (about, so it's probably 3 cm?? not sure) wood strips. Held together with nails and with a fabric fly netting mesh stretched and stapled to it. You just set it in the opening and the structure of the window holds it in place, because the windows open on side-mounted hinges like little doors, so there's more structure in there that would prevent it from falling out.

If you have to balance it inside a window frame and there's nothing to prevent it falling out, strips of foam could work, or so could those self-adhesive rubber (? latex? vinyl?) stripes that they sell to go around the edges of doors to block drafts. And of course you can also attach some hardware to hold it in place - the built-in removable screens I grew up with had little triangular eyelets on the frame of them and you'd have those tiny size finishing nails or hooks in the windowframe to hook them onto.

[spark]

Useful to know! My windows are all the little door type, so that helps, but it can get pretty windy here at times so something like foam or rubber to help make a seal seems like a good idea. Although admittedly bugs are much less of an issue when it's windy.

[cimorene]

I am not afraid of bugs but my wife is catnip to mosquitos and we have WAY too much bunny hay lying around at any given time thanks to the houserabbits to run the risk of attracting house flies. Also our cats are stupid and would probably do a nosedive out the windows.

So I'm gonna be making a lot more of these soon. I think they couldn't fall out in ours because with double-glazed door windows the outer one opens out and the inner one opens in, so the screen would get stuck on the outer one if it tried to go anywhere. Though a seal might prevent it from rattling around... however, with our old house and wooden window frames, plus the inherent flexibility of the thin wood frame... you just sort of line it up, set it against the frame - the fit is always a little too tight at first - then whack a corner with the flat of your hand and it pops into place, as my wife would say, like a glove. (Not really like a glove, but there's some tension.)

[spark]

Mosquitos aren't too bad here, but since it's a farm there are a LOT of flies, especially when it's warm and dry which is exactly when we'd want the windows open. And at night, a lot of little brown bats, which is awesome but it's better for them if they don't fly into the house!

[cimorene]

Awww!!!!! Tiny bats!!!

[out_there]

My Dad, who was already an adult when he moved to Alabama, once remarked that the way all the natives instantly gravitated towards patches of shade when it was hot or sunny was one of the first things he noticed when he moved there

Huh. Now that's something that I wouldn't have thought of. I'm in Southern Australia, so we have cooler summers -- by cooler, I mean summer is usually 28C-34C with 50%-60% humidity -- we do get days of up to 42C and complain, but because we're not humid you can feel the difference between standing in the sunshine and getting into the shade. It makes an immediate difference, so heading straight for the shade is a big part of getting through summer.

She had come dressed for this activity in black jeans and a long-sleeved tshirt.

Huh. I was amazed at that. I'm used to the best part of summer is that the warm weather comes, so you end up spending all your time in t-shirts and shorts (or skirts without stockings), or summer dresses. It's all one thin layer of cotton and not having to wear much. A summer's day where you're still able to wear jeans doesn't feel like summer to me.

in Finland it'll just have a lot of smelly people drowning in their own sweat, because they won't even prop the doors and windows open.

Oh, ewwww. It is interesting how age of a city effects that as well. In Italy, their summer was 30C-33C in the south but the airconditioning was very mild. It felt like a fan and most buildings were like that. In Dubia, where the weather outside was 44C, everywhere you went had airconditioning pumping out 22C of chilled air -- great that any doorway you stopped in was cool, but strange to need a cardigan to offset the chill indoors.

Of course, as is well known, Alabama lacks the infrastructure to deal with cold weather and particularly snow, and in that case infrastructure is very important since snow plows and gravel trucks belong to the city and winter tires are checked by the government.

Which makes a lot of sense. If it snowed here no one would have a clue what to do -- but we have mild winters, our cold snaps are usually less than a week and we'll only get to -2C overnight. But you feel that cold because we're not used to dressing for it.

[cimorene]

Yes, using shade is so automatic if you come from the right climate - your summers sound more like Alabama summers though not exact. So it's quite odd to be reasonably comfortable in the shade and listening to people dressed inappropriately or working in the sun without bothering to set up shade when they could have complaining that they're hot. It's like... yes? Of course you are hot?? Why aren't you in the shade RIGHT NOW???

It is interesting how age of a city effects that as well.

That's a good point. Of course older buildings need different adaptations. The building I was working in a couple of summers ago was just a standard warehouse building from the 1980s or so probably though - they didn't really have a full understanding of global warming yet at the time, but it wasn't ANCIENT, and there's no excuse for not propping open doors and windows and using fans for ventilation.