Possible improvement to the car for cooler areas?

Pardon my naivete, but what does -30C/-22F feel like? What are the hallmarks of this temperature? Does coffee freeze before it hits the ground when spilled? Does saliva freeze? Immediately? Etc?

Here in sunny Northern California we've already had our annual two days of actual "weather" and it's only 5-Jan! Yesterday and the day before it was rainy and windy like it would be in an east-coast style rainstorm, complete with thunder and lightning and all our crap blowing out of the back yard into the street and neighbors' yards, including ATTACK OF THE KILLER UMBRELLA. It was amazingly wet. The rain wasn't that drizzly stuff we locals call "rain" but actual rain where you have to use the two fastest settings on the wipers and everything.

I got to enjoy my 205 tires and my BT Tech stiffening plate. WOO!!!

The BT Tech stiffening plate is nice in most wind gusts but you will still get the occasional symmetric wind gust (plate does nothing to help against symmetric forces) and it scares the heck out of you.

~ dan ~

 

easy to "kinda" know what its like...

have any warehouse stores?

ones around here require you to go into freezers set at -10 F... that is close...

be warned... do not breathe in deeply at first...air that cold and dry can really cause some damage to your lungs

 

try it when going from 70 to -20 in a few second

 

I don't know what you think of the transition from cool to hot, though

I flew into MCO (Orlando) one cold, cold morning in July 1999. I must have ignored the pilot's description of local conditions. I was on a redeye that left a frigid SFO (San Francisco) at 22:00 the previous night. MCO is a large airport with monorail-like hanging trams to carry you from the terminals to the entrance. The whole process looks very outdoorsy because of huge windows; it is in fact totally sealed. I walked out the front door of a nice, cool airport into a local 08:00 at 86F. The large wooden benches outside the airport were sweating.

OMG.

~ dan ~

 

Well, as David mentioned, ice and snow become "squeaky" when you walk on it. Ice near the melting point is far more slippery than ice at -40.

The only way I've had coffee freeze in the air, was at -40. I flung the cup upwards as hard as I could, creating a fine shower of coffee. It turned to ice crystals. Otherwise, if you pour it on the ground at -40, it will take awhile to freeze

One thing you do *not* do is try to lick anything metal at that temp. Yes, as a kid I found out, like a lot of kids up here do. I do believe Mythbusters had a nice episode on cold weather, at least what passes for cold weather in the Sierra Nevadas.

The cold can really effect a motor vehicle. Conventional 5W-30 oils turn solid below -30 C, and regular 80W-90 gear oil turns solid at -25 C. In severe cold, say down to -50 C or colder, a battery stops working. It's too cold for the chemical reactions.

But the only way to really understand cold weather is to experience it. We're currently having a heatwave with highs of +33 F, but check back when the lows are near -40

If I had a choice of a damp, nasty climate where you have to dash from A/C car to A/C house, or -40, I'd take the -40. Mold doesn't grow very well at -40

 

The coldest I have been was in 1960 when I was plunged into an environment where the temperature was -84c. Boy, was it cold, especially as I had summer weight clothing on and part of that was torn. Luckily I was only in that environment for a few minutes.

 

Besides for David and jayman comments (excellent winter-like summary) the only thing I can add is that it takes like 6 months to get used to it.

 

Nah, more like a week or two. The biggest plus in my book: no bugs.

 

Haha, no way!. No if you are coming from a Tropical country (Venezuela for example).
I came to Canada 5 years ago, I remember wearing long underwear that September '02 because it was "too cold" (~10C). Now, I wear short whenenver it is above 5C.

 

What -40 does is make you realize how warm it is at 0C. (freezing) We light the fire in the cabin @ -35c and within an hour we're sweating. Look down at the thermometer and it says -5c. It becomes all relative. I'll take --30c over plus 30c any day!

Icarus

 

Oh, that's entirely different.

Personally I can't stand humidity. I can deal with Palm Springs/Death Valley, California *much* better than say Miami, Florida

 

Me too. No bugs at -30 C

 

After spending 20+ years at ~+30C me too.

This morning -20C, tonight's low -22C, just getting there....

 

I love these forums...

I actually enjoy cooler weather, except when I first wake up; that's when it should be warm and nice and we should all stay in bed and not go to work (kids were awful today )

~ dan ~