What's the lowest temperature you've experienced?

Mr Benevolent

Inspired by the Iceland thread. What's the lowest temperature you have personally experienced, i.e, not read off the weather station ?

My personal record is -27C in February 2000 in Sweden. Left a bottle of Coke on the ground, took the ski lift up a 1000ft hill, and by the time I'd ineptly skiied back down it had frozen solid. The wind felt like liquid nitrogen. Great fun

Danno

January 1999 - got a -13 at home. Was loading a lorry with a load from a cooler. The cooler at 2c felt warm!

An opposite effect I felt in August 1995 was going from a 54c glasshouse out in to a 31c afternoon and getting goosepimples!

They are the two extremes I have been in in this country that I can recall.

I did also experience 36c in the Canaries in 2002.

CiaranC

-44 in Banff, Alberta, Canada

Sometimes -1 in Dublin feels colder than there though!

nacho libre

- 50 in oymyakon.

Snowbie

1st -8C St Petersburg April 1992
2nd -7C Boston Jan 1998
3rd -5C Dublin Jan 1982

Serge

-29C Minsk, Belarus, winter 2005/2006.

ParkRunner

I dont know what the temperature was but I was in Yosemite National park in California in July 2003 and spent one night in a canvas hut high in the mountains. I had all my clothes on and 4 thick blankets but I was still shaking with the cold, it was unreal.

Deep Easterly

-12 Tuam December 2001
-7 Galway (Mervue) 2006
-6.4 Last January.

One thing I have noticed, the colder and frostier it is, the less I feel the cold. It is probably just me, but even when there is snow falling or lying, it dosen't feel as cold as it would be if it was just the standard wind and rain ****e.

nacho libre

Deep Easterly wrote: »

-12 Tuam December 2001
-7 Galway (Mervue) 2006
-6.4 Last January.

One thing I have noticed, the colder and frostier it is, the less I feel the cold. It is probably just me, but even when there is snow falling or lying, it dosen't feel as cold as it would be if it was just the standard wind and rain ****e.

yes, paddy1, there is nothing worse than when it's very cold and all we get is rain out of it. it's a terrible waste of cold weather when that happens. you can't beat cold and crisp days or, of course, snow days:)

forkassed

CiaranC wrote: »

-44 in Banff, Alberta, Canada

Sometimes -1 in Dublin feels colder than there though!

I noticed that too- i got -20 in the alps last year and it didnt feel as bad as a cold day in here

Maybe something to do with the moisture in the sea air versus the dry mountain air or something

kerry1960

Looking at some of those 'mins' my 'dashboard' reading of -17c in Iceland looks tropical .:o

Snowbie

CiaranC wrote: »

-44 in Banff, Alberta, Canada

Sometimes -1 in Dublin feels colder than there though!

forkassed wrote: »

I noticed that too- i got -20 in the alps last year and it didnt feel as bad as a cold day in here

Maybe something to do with the moisture in the sea air versus the dry mountain air or something

Some low temps there. Windier conditions around the coast can make an air temp of -1C feel like a -10C(depending on strength of wind) and if you do not have the adequate clothing it can feel alot colder especially when us Dubs will not be kitted out for the Canadian/Alpine regions strolling back from a pub.:p
In those temps, I'd say you would had layers upon layers and be snugish and won't feel as bad?

Mothman

Probably about -10C final ascent of Kilimanjaro. Kept water bottle inside outer layer to prevent it freezing.
Probably was near that in Jan 82. -5C was mesaured INSIDE the dormitory of the school :eek:

Mr Benevolent

Have to admit that the coldest I've ever felt was cycling by the seafront in Sutton around +1C :pac:

inforfun

-15, windforce 6
January 1987
West Germany, close to east german border.
Anytime i feel chilly now i think about those 2 weeks over there and think to myself: "Now, THAT was cold"

Ruu_Old

-13C in Chicago last year, windchill is a beach.

Takeshi_Kovacs

Coldest weather in Ireland i have been out in was at around -8C, but coldest i have ever experienced, is an industrial freezer room that goes to around -32C, although, have never experienced wind chill from this too much, as the fans are way up near the ceiling. Still pretty damn cold though.

ch750536

In a freezer -30 ish, in the UK I think -19 once in Cannock ( I believe it was the coldest English recorded temp at the time, about '92.

Dotsie~tmp

Changing out the high bay fittings in a freezer warehouse. Temp was -20 to -30 at floor level. Up on the cherry picker where the lights were beside the freezer fan units I can only guess what the wind chill made it feel like. Maybe -50. Bare hands lost all feeling in 2 minutes trying to work. Pain is quite something after 5 mins.

positron

approx -20 in Livigno, Italy. We were just after getting there and were looking for a particular hotel, ended up walking around for an hour - it was C.O.L.D! Luckily they also have comfiest restaurant serving piping hot pizzas with seriously cheap alcohol...! That made up for it!

On the other end of the scale, I have been to Chennai (Southern India) for work and stepping out for lunch was into 47 - 48 degree wall of heat. Getting back into the air-conditioned office area (28 deg) makes you feel cold, and once I was in the server room there (set to 14 deg I think) - I couldn't stop the shivers going down my spine, I had step out every 10 mins or so..!!

positron

positron wrote: »

approx -20 in Livigno, Italy. We were just after getting there and were looking for a particular hotel, ended up walking around for an hour - it was C.O.L.D! Luckily they also have comfiest restaurant serving piping hot pizzas with seriously cheap alcohol...! That made up for it!

I also experienced my coldest ever temperature in Livigno.
It was nearly 10 years ago and was down to -24c regularally for the first few days...then we had a jan 1982 style blizzard that must have dumped 2 foot of level snow in 36 hours.

When it's that cold,the hairs on the inside of your nostril actually freeze ie they stick together hard.
A friend of mine who used live in ontario told me after that that was how they used differentiate between a cold day and a really cold day over there ie whether their nostril hair froze.It starts doing that below -15 or so :eek::pac::eek:

Redderneck

-38C in Omsk, Siberia. There would've been wind chill to factor in also I guess, but no idea what that'd have done to the final number. As long as you're well dressed and keep moving, it's grand. Much prefer the cold to the heat.

fozzle

Mine's about -20 in Ontario winter of 2000/2001. Definately didn't feel as cold as some days I've had here - there was no wind, and incredibly low humidity - the damp here seems to suck any heat right out of ya.

Dunno what my coldest here was, but I remember many mornings as a child waking up to ice on the inside of my bedroom window, so I guess it wasn't warm

rainbow kirby

-12C in Gotzens, Austria in February 2001. Let's just say I was bloody thankful for the heavy ski gear.

Frisbee

-12 in Finland about 6 years ago

furtzy

-32C in Michigan 1999. The inside of my nose froze...very painful :eek:

Abhainn

nacho libre wrote: »

- 50 in oymyakon.

I'm intrigued. You were there? Tell us more!

gothwalk

About -34C in Finland, three or four years ago. We went for a walk, and even with proper Finnish winter gear, multiple layers, and so on, had to turn back because the occasional tiny breeze was painful.

I used to make a habit when we were there, when I woke up, of going to the front door and getting a few breaths of fresh air - buildings there are damn near sealed in winter, for obvious reasons, and the air gets very dry. The morning of that walk, I'd stepped out onto the porch in my boxers, and gone "Gosh, that's a bit chilly..." before peering at the outside thermometer beside me and seeing -27C. I went back inside quickish.

Mothman

I think this afternoon about 1pm.......in Wicklow
at least felt like the coldest

M.T. Cranium

-41 C, reading my trusty Taylor max-min thermometer in my "back yard" near Longford Mills, Ontario (note the Irish connection) ... Jan 23, 1976 at about midnight. It was cold enough that you could hear trees cracking in the severe frost. Could take about two minutes, then inside to thaw out.

This was probably the coldest temperature in that part of the world since February 1934 when some places reported -45 C. And the coldest ever in Canada was about -63 C in the Yukon. When it gets below -30 C you don't need any wind chill to feel the full extent of the cold including potential for frost-bite, but with wind chill it can be fatal in a few minutes. There are some places in the Canadian arctic that see wind chill values to -70 C, usually this is with temps of about -35 C and winds to 80 km/hr. In conditions like that a person could freeze to death in about a minute if they lost their way outside. Imagine being a polar bear, and realizing the whole human race is against warming things up for you.

copacetic

positron wrote: »

approx -20 in Livigno, Italy. We were just after getting there and were looking for a particular hotel, ended up walking around for an hour - it was C.O.L.D! Luckily they also have comfiest restaurant serving piping hot pizzas with seriously cheap alcohol...! That made up for it!

Had about -18 there myself. Weirdly it was a 'nice' dry cold, easy to deal with apart from your snot freezing.

-4 here would feel as cold sometimes, something about the Irish weather gets into your bones.