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ordinary_kittens t1_iuir330 wrote

Reply to comment by The_Power_of_Ammonia in ELI5 Why are airport ceiling so high? by TrShry

I was trying to say the routine average cold temperature, not the coldest. I live in Canada, I assume during a cold snap you guys might get to -50F like we do, but surely it’s not routinely that cold every night?

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CitizenSnipsJr t1_iuiube0 wrote

I've lived in MN my whole life and the coldest I remember was a few overnight lows of -30F during a polar vortex. I think some areas in greater MN might have hit -40F here and there but it's certainly not routine and doesn't stay that cold very long. Anything lower than say -10F is not common and usually only for a few days to a week or so.

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ordinary_kittens t1_iuiuxlu wrote

Yeah, people in Canada tend to exaggerate by giving the windchill temperatures, but I think that’s cheating. Excluding windchill we don’t really get to -40F/-40C very often, maybe only once or twice every second winter, in the middle of the night during a cold snap, like you said.

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The_Power_of_Ammonia t1_iuit1sp wrote

What part of Canada? I think we get and stay colder than most of the East and Great Lakes areas. We're further North than Toronto even.

Every year in Jan/Feb we'll get a week or two with nightly lows of -40 to -50 or so. Sometimes the daily high even stays below -30F for a week or two. Bright, sunny winter days are a special thing - too cold to snow!

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ordinary_kittens t1_iuitwg2 wrote

I don’t like to give my location but I live near Edmonton, so very dry and cold.

I don’t know Fahrenheit very well but a cold night here will maybe be -30C, with maybe only a week where the temperatures dip below -40C. I mean without windchill (since we are talking about pipes freezing indoors).

I checked the average low temperature for January for Minnesota before posting, and it said the average low was around 4F, so I figured I was fairly close to around what the average low temperature was.

Yes, lots of bright sunny winter days here, too. But, I can tell you guys aren’t much warmer than us despite being so much further south…those midwestern winters are brutal!

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The_Power_of_Ammonia t1_iuiv7mz wrote

I like those temps for a lot of reasons, one of them that the C/F distinction more or less goes away down there haha.

All good mate, talking about the winter's cold can quickly turn into a Salty Spitoon contest of who's toughest! I'm happy to give it to you up in Edmonton though - you know the senses involved with a clear January day for sure!

Right around the corner now, good sauna weather! I was just noting to a friend too how we're a third of the way down from summer: 50⁰ off from the top of July, 100⁰ still to go down to the bottom of January. . . Bring it on!

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CitizenSnipsJr t1_iuiukwm wrote

Do you live in international falls or something? -30F is extremely rare for the metro area, and -40 to -50 is basically unheard of.

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The_Power_of_Ammonia t1_iuiwdbq wrote

It hits those lows every single year. I'm in the west metro, lived here my whole life.

2014/15 (I think it was) we had highs of -55F, plus windchill. That was exceptional, but we get a week or two at least every year of lows around -40.

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CitizenSnipsJr t1_iuiz1n1 wrote

WC temps are made up BS and don't really mean anything. It's only touched overnight lows of -30F a handful of times over many seasons in the metro and only for a couple days max. I only remember two days where the daytime temp was below -20F and that was during a polar vortex.

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