Once you’re below -6C or so you just need more insulation. -6C to 10C in many ways can be harder to manage due to humidity, especially in wet conditions. My prolonged exposure experience is only down to -30C. I did not have enough insulation, but an extra base layer, better gloves/boots would have been sufficient. I was fine with fairly light clothing down to -18C. I hear -50C is where it starts to get really harsh again.
Your body also adjusts a lot. In the Summer in wearing a puffy indoors at 10C(50F) but in the winter I’ll go out in a t-shirt at -10C, especially if doing manual labor.
That’s crazy. My body doesn’t adjust to cold weather. I’m always cold when it’s cold outside, and I’m talking about cold which is considerably warmer than the cold you’re talking about.
Yeah like i said, -6 to about 10C is bad cold due to humidity. But after a few weeks of daily outside temps below zero i adjust. Colorado was even crazier when I was there. Needed thick socks and snowboots but otherwise the sun was still so warming I’d break a sweat walking with a jacket on.
After a few weeks, the humidity is driven out of the air, and humidity is what allows heat to transfer to/from your body more efficiently. Hit feels hotter when it’s humid, and the same with cold, however hot air can hold more moisture, so it tends to build humidity over time. After a couple weeks with cold weather, the humidity drops and the cold starts to feel less cold.
Water capacity of air drops to about 0.25% around 20F/-6C. That doesn’t take weeks, it’s ideal gas law. Something about that difference between the 0.45%(ish) at 0C/32F is really impactful. That’s absolute humidity, not relative btw. Relative humidity is weather dependent.
In any case, there’s bound to be a lot of other factors such as calorie intake, behavioral changes like exercise, and biases such as the types of activities being done in cold vs hot or the indoors temperature that impact things. The body does tend to find a stasis if it can and that adjustment does occur to some extent. More or less for any given individual. Maybe i made my previous statements too general.
This last winter it got down to 0 F, and 15% humidity. I put every single insulating layer I own on to go outside, and within a minute I was freezing. Granted, I don’t have dedicated cold weather boots, or pants. That was the main point of weakness. So, this year I’m going to invest in some winter pants and boots. My regular ones aren’t cutting it with these record breaking winters that we’ve been getting.
Once you’re below -6C or so you just need more insulation. -6C to 10C in many ways can be harder to manage due to humidity, especially in wet conditions. My prolonged exposure experience is only down to -30C. I did not have enough insulation, but an extra base layer, better gloves/boots would have been sufficient. I was fine with fairly light clothing down to -18C. I hear -50C is where it starts to get really harsh again.
Your body also adjusts a lot. In the Summer in wearing a puffy indoors at 10C(50F) but in the winter I’ll go out in a t-shirt at -10C, especially if doing manual labor.
That’s crazy. My body doesn’t adjust to cold weather. I’m always cold when it’s cold outside, and I’m talking about cold which is considerably warmer than the cold you’re talking about.
Yeah like i said, -6 to about 10C is bad cold due to humidity. But after a few weeks of daily outside temps below zero i adjust. Colorado was even crazier when I was there. Needed thick socks and snowboots but otherwise the sun was still so warming I’d break a sweat walking with a jacket on.
After a few weeks, the humidity is driven out of the air, and humidity is what allows heat to transfer to/from your body more efficiently. Hit feels hotter when it’s humid, and the same with cold, however hot air can hold more moisture, so it tends to build humidity over time. After a couple weeks with cold weather, the humidity drops and the cold starts to feel less cold.
Water capacity of air drops to about 0.25% around 20F/-6C. That doesn’t take weeks, it’s ideal gas law. Something about that difference between the 0.45%(ish) at 0C/32F is really impactful. That’s absolute humidity, not relative btw. Relative humidity is weather dependent.
In any case, there’s bound to be a lot of other factors such as calorie intake, behavioral changes like exercise, and biases such as the types of activities being done in cold vs hot or the indoors temperature that impact things. The body does tend to find a stasis if it can and that adjustment does occur to some extent. More or less for any given individual. Maybe i made my previous statements too general.
This last winter it got down to 0 F, and 15% humidity. I put every single insulating layer I own on to go outside, and within a minute I was freezing. Granted, I don’t have dedicated cold weather boots, or pants. That was the main point of weakness. So, this year I’m going to invest in some winter pants and boots. My regular ones aren’t cutting it with these record breaking winters that we’ve been getting.