Poll: Definitions of cold

[koalathebear]

My iPhone has a weather alert on it and I've set it to give me the temperature for 3 cities. Right now it's 29°C (84.2°F) in Canberra, and 6°C (42.8°F in Beijing) and 7°C (44.6°F) in Toronto

Comments

[hazy_crazy]

I love having debates with others about what is cold and what isn't.

screaming_blur on my f-list is from Manchester, England, and she thinks that 25 degrees is a HEATWAVE, which I found really, really amusing because it's been reaching 40 degrees over here lately.

But, on the other hand, she thinks it's hilarious that I find 14 degrees cold, or even 20 degrees just a bit chilly. She said the latter is perfect t-shirt weather :P

Go ask the Canadian what weather he considers "hot", and then you can scoff at him when he reckons 29 degrees is boiling ;) I see the average high in July (their summer, obviously) is a nice and pleasant 26 degrees :P

[koalathebear]

I was telling the Canadian to look at the post but warned him that 'normality' was skewed by the fact that I had quite a few Canadians and Scandinavians on my friends list :) They would have a totally different concept of cold :D

Canberra's got such a wide range. In summer it gets really hot - high thirties. In winter it's zero, minus 2 and then minus 10 at night so I think I'm pretty moderate when it comes to judging what is cold ;)

[elosun]

Funny.

I've been in Hong Kong since Xmas and the last week has been "very cold" by HK standards--hovering around 8°C, and people have been walking about in full parkas, turtlenecks, toques and those chinese jackets ('mean laps') ... whereas I've been walking around in shorts and tshirts and getting weird looks from people.

[elosun]

And, forgot to say, for me ... −10°C isn't that cold. It's with the added windchill and stuff that makes it feel like -20+ that makes that cold.

[koalathebear]

Hong Kong people are absolutely hilarious with their definition of cold. Some of the jackets look like they belong on Eskimos and it's really not that cold! :D

[baleanoptera]

I used to be pretty good about the cold but after a year living in Sydney, I went 'soft' and now find Canberra winters quite difficult

Hee. A similar thing has happened to me as well. I grew up in the eastern part of Norway and in winter the average temperature there is between -10 to -15C.Now I considered this cold, but I was used to it. Then I moved to the west coast where it rarely falls below 0 C even in winter. The problem is that whenever I go to the east coast for a visit I shiver like mad! I cannot grasp how I survived living in such a cold place! ;D

[koalathebear]

I find it kind of sad how easily we get 'soft'. In Harbin, in Northern China where it gets down to minus 30 in winter and old people do strange things like 'ice swimming' in frozen lakes, the people there are really very hardy and used to the cold, but when they move to Beijing (which does have sub zero temperatures sometimes but nothing below minus 10), they tell me that even they get 'soft' and find it very hard when they go back to Harbin to adjust to the cold :D

For me when I went to Harbin, I could not believe how cold it was. I really thought I'd die - it was only minus 20 and everyone kept saying: "Ha ha it gets colder!" but having my breath turn my scarf to ice on my face was just weird!

[hibernate]

Ha! You call that cold? :D

WHen I used to live further up north -10 was nothing. Now, I'm living further down south and by the sea, so the temperatures are milder, but still, I'd never call Canberran winters cold by any means.

I have a pal who lives in Perth, and he is such a wimp in low temperatures. He'll start professing it's "cold" when it's like +15 C! On the other hand, like someone else mentioned in comments, *I* am a total wimp in HIGH temperatures. 25 C is HOT around here. I'd never be able to stand the +30 C temps Oz gets.

[koalathebear]

Bahaha I was telling the Canadian to ignore the responses from Canadians and Scandinavians on my friends list because you guys have a totally different concept of cold ;) I was in forty degree heat once and that was pretty unbearable. The coldest I've been in was minus 20 in Harbin and that was pretty unbearable. I was quite uncomfortable at that temperature :D

[coneycat]

In Nova Scotia, minus ten is moderately cold. However, it feels colder in the fall than in the spring--when the temperature falls to minus ten, that's one thing. When it rises to minus ten, that's another!

Also, when I worked in Texas I nearly froze to death in the central air conditioning at work! My coworkers, when they griped about how cold the setting was, used to point out, "you're a Canadian! You should be used to the cold!" To which I would reply, "Cold belongs outside! In my country we'd have set something on fire by now!"

So yes, circumstances play a role!

[koalathebear]

Poor Canadians, you must get everyone assuming that you're able to withstand superhumanly cold levels of cold ;) Nonetheless, I do believe that Canadian concepts of cold and Australian concepts of cold are likely to be rather different :)