[Kosh]

A few days ago we had a major cold front move in, that caused the temp to drop from 13 C to -5 C in one day, and yesterday we had a blistering high of 0 C and a low of -9 C, of course it feels much colder because of a cold, strong wind. Ugh, can't wait until summer comes.......

[Mika]

I recall one strange day from my childhood, in the morning there was -25 C, in the end of day it was 0 C. Father still comments about an incident that took palce in 1960s, the weather stayed around -50 C for weeks, and suddenly dropped to only -30 C. Sounded like it was summer again...

Mika

[Mongoose]

A few days ago we had a major cold front move in, that caused the temp to drop from 13 C to -5 C in one day, and yesterday we had a blistering high of 0 C and a low of -9 C, of course it feels much colder because of a cold, strong wind. Ugh, can't wait until summer comes.......

You're free to complain when it hits negative Fahrenheit.  Until then, deal.

*infinitely prefers winter to summer*

[Polpolion]

A few days ago we had a major cold front move in, that caused the temp to drop from 13 C to -5 C in one day, and yesterday we had a blistering high of 0 C and a low of -9 C, of course it feels much colder because of a cold, strong wind. Ugh, can't wait until summer comes.......

You're free to complain when it hits negative Fahrenheit.  Until then, deal.

*infinitely prefers winter to summer*

Agreed on both. You can always put clothes on, but you can only take off so much in the summer.

[Tyrian]

Where I live, it did hit negative Fahrenheit.

[S-99]

Idk wtf u guys are complaining about. In the new year there was a little over a week of nothing but -50F for me (-45.5C). Oh man it sucked. I was stuck at my friends houses for 3 days. They all had inadequately sized wood stoves. And i was the unlucky mofo to sleep on the floor. The house wasn't well insulated either. Anything above a 2 foot altitude on the floor was freezing temperatures. 4 blankets, hat gloves, hoodie, carhartts, and i was barely managing the nights.

My other friend who was supposed to wake up every hour and toss more wood into the fire didn't wake up so i just did that myself. Good thing i kept awake though. I kept on hearing this tinging noise only to discover it was can of soda slowly freezing and would have exploded on me (quick fix for that...i put it on a shelf much above 2 feet above the ground). That soda was menacing it was expanding out of both sides.

2 nights of doing this at the first house and the last night i was there they were serving me all the alcohol i desired and all the food i desired and gave me a free pair of carhartts. Apparently when i was there everyone was able to sleep for my inability to sleep at that time and kept the fires going because i was bored.

The last friends house i was staying at. There was 2 houses, a normal house at the bottom of the hill, and a cabin at the top of the hill. I noticed something was up when this dude randomly shows up in my other friend's house uninvited. My friend quickly told me that the night before just on a fluke he took a look outside to the top of the hill and saw no smoke coming out of the dude's chimney. So he went up there and got in, and saw that the wood stove was cold as hell frozen over and a huge mound of 10 blankets with a little hole on the side for somebody to crawl in. The dude claimed he didn't know how to make a fire, his inability going so far as he didn't know how to toss logs in a fire either. Me and my friend gathered this out of his pure laziness. And i quickly connected one and the other and found out this random dude went some place warmer because he didn't keep his fire going since the last time my friend got him a good one going the night before.

So we went up there and treated the dude like an idiot in the cabin. We spent 3 hours trying our damndest to reverse the temperature from -50f to at least something above 32f. It's not that bad at -50F even with minimal winter gear, but it is hard to keep your feet warm even if you're wearing boots. This is why i always opt for wearing my skating sneakers in winter because my feet will be no warmer than with other things and i'll have superior traction to everybody else. We succeeded treating the dude like an idiot making sure that regardless of his laziness he knew for sure how to maintain a fire now and start one. Until he moved the lazy boy over near the fire place, like really close, and we're like don't burn the ****ing place down.

I ended up going to sleep stoking the fire in the house i was staying in at the bottom of the hill. And i woke up again at 5:30am to that ****ing retard from the cabin going some place warmer. I was like WTF?!?!? I was not happy. Had that dude been somewhere else i'd quite surely leave him to be frozen to death (he'd have only done it to himself), probably the time before he dies he realizes to stay alive he's got to do something for himself for once; like tossing some logs in the fire. Evolution, survival of the fittest, how did his parents know how to breed?

[Ghostavo]

Idk wtf u guys are complaining about. In the new year there was a little over a week of nothing but -50F for me (-45.5C).

Damn, for a second there I thought you lived in deep in Antartica.

[S-99]

I live in interior alaska arount the fairbanks area. It's normal for temperatures to stay around -20f or -30f all winter for 6 months with the annual 1 or 2 days of -50f. This -50f stint was pretty long and has happened before. It just sucks.

[tinfoil]

it does indeed. minus 45 is bloody cold. even for someone born and raised in canada. my question though is was it windy? that is hell.

Where I live, it did hit negative Fahrenheit.

where i live it does that all the time. in fact it's doing that now.

[Mika]

I thought houses in Alaska would be exceptionally well insulated.

What is the reason for the reliance of stoves providing the heating? Or were these typical houses at all? Have you heard about a special kind of stove called "leivinuuni" in Finnish?
Photo: http://www.vastavalo.fi/uuni-uunit-leivinuuni-leivinuunin-lammitys-132045.html

Some people here do burn logs in that kind of stove to warm their houses (doubles as very efficient cookery stove), but mostly in cities the heating is provided by a thermal plant which can on some occasions provide electrical power also. Some people opt for oil heating (oil reserve is buried under ground next to the house), some people use electricity. I don't recall hearing much problems about heating last time there was -50 C, the only problem were houses that relied in electrical heating. That's because the electrical wiring outside had broken at some places.

I think we had more problems with traffic at -35 C. I recall seeing a bus burning on the road and the driver using a fire extinguisher to kill the engine fire...

Mika

[S-99]

Alaska is a little old school. Should you actually live in a city then sure you get gas heating. I grew up with wood heat though. It's cheap and works great with a properly sized stove.

My friend's houses were not typical at all. They were all partial cabins merged with UV's and trailers. Really cool houses given how poor 2 of my friends families are. Full functional electricity, running water, ventilation system. The places are all really cool to live in and feel very homey. Modular housing to the extreme. But, this also means certain parts of my friend's houses aren't as insulated as well as other parts. They went all out on their houses which i can tell, but the inadequately sized stoves wasn't fun. A home made stove made out of steel barrel was all they would have needed. But no, two stoves with a volume of only a 3rd of a steel barrel just didn't cut it.

I'm not much of a fan of electrical heating except as a backup service or supplemental. Wood heat is primary. And easy to keep up with if your stove is of a good size. A large stove you don't have to stoke fire for like 4 hours. This is why getting out of bed every hour at my friend's place to stoke the fire in a tiny stove was ridiculous.

No it wasn't windy. Thank god. Reminds me of the time the band the presidents came to fairbanks, i was at the theatre, cab lines were busy, and i had 6 miles to get home. It was -20f with a windchill of -50f. I ran home the whole way, it sucked balls. I couldn't stand being outside with such different extremes like that. All i had was my leather jacket too. I ran home, pit stop at a bar for a beer. Ran the rest of the way back to my campus to visit my friends. Hours later ran back down the hill to get home. Wasn't a good weather night at all. The cold that night was very penetrating.

[Grizzly]

0 C and a low of -9 C,

So? That's awesome! If that kind of temperature persists, you can go Ice skating on natural ice in no-time. Which is fun .

[Nuke]

in juneau we had oil heating, anchorage it was usually a centralized gas furnace. ive never really been anywhere near the interior, not during winter anyway. anchorage was as far north as ive ever had to deal with a winter. what juneau had in addition to its relative warness was an overabundance of wetness. i think that pissed me off more than any dry, cold anchorage winter. anyway my solution was to move to phoenix. its probibly like 60 or 70 f today

[Mika]

Reminds me of the time the band the presidents came to fairbanks, i was at the theatre, cab lines were busy, and i had 6 miles to get home. It was -20f with a windchill of -50f. I ran home the whole way, it sucked balls. I couldn't stand being outside with such different extremes like that. All i had was my leather jacket too. I ran home, pit stop at a bar for a beer. Ran the rest of the way back to my campus to visit my friends. Hours later ran back down the hill to get home. Wasn't a good weather night at all. The cold that night was very penetrating.

My bicycling experience was about the same, though the trip lasted only some half an hour. And it is indeed very penetrating. I have met several people from Northern Finland who are used to live in -40 C for some weeks every winter. They say this place is worse at -25 C because of the windchill and humidity.

Nowadays I'm a little bit more careful about protecting legs in cold; I have heard stories of people around my age dying because they inadequately protected leg area, and continued cold resulted in blood clots after they got back in warmth.

Now, I think this year we have only had something like -20 C, yet. Though the coldest time is usually between January and February, so maybe we'll get it.

Do you happen to have a picture of a typical stove you use there to keep the house warm?

Mika

EDIT: Realized that some of the people mentioning cold in this thread participated in the global warming thread. Ain't it nice to have some more of this  ? I could take an extra half a meter of snow anytime, this place has currently less snow than what has been the average in 1980s.

[iamzack]

cold outside = excellent excuse for sex

free heat!

[Nuke]

somone got demonkeyed

[iamzack]

demonkeyed and unblocked from Diaspora

[tinfoil]

0 C and a low of -9 C,

So? That's awesome! If that kind of temperature persists, you can go Ice skating on natural ice in no-time. Which is fun .

Not just skating, Hockey! or downhill skiing or any other reason why i like winter more than summer

[S-99]

My bicycling experience was about the same, though the trip lasted only some half an hour. And it is indeed very penetrating. I have met several people from Northern Finland who are used to live in -40 C for some weeks every winter. They say this place is worse at -25 C because of the windchill and humidity.

Nowadays I'm a little bit more careful about protecting legs in cold; I have heard stories of people around my age dying because they inadequately protected leg area, and continued cold resulted in blood clots after they got back in warmth.

Now, I think this year we have only had something like -20 C, yet. Though the coldest time is usually between January and February, so maybe we'll get it.

Do you happen to have a picture of a typical stove you use there to keep the house warm?

Mika

EDIT: Realized that some of the people mentioning cold in this thread participated in the global warming thread. Ain't it nice to have some more of this  ? I could take an extra half a meter of snow anytime, this place has currently less snow than what has been the average in 1980s.

Windchill can get horrible. I don't have anything that guards against wind. The stuff that guards against wind is too noisy of a garment for me to like to wear in general (i like to move around quietly). I use to go biking to class 6 miles to get to class downtown in like -30f at the lowest i'd need to bike in. Having a backpack with thick leather jacket, gloves, mp3 player, and a bike on ice got annoying even though it was faster than taking the bus. I don't ride in winter anymore.

Inadequate leg protection is one of those things i don't focus on much. Sure my legs will get a little cold, but your body will get used to that pretty fast. I defeat my legs getting cold by walking super fast which also keeps the rest of me warm. I'll keep that bloodclot thing in mind though; i'll research that out of survival. I usually have a very modular approach to dressing in winter, but not too complicated. I overheat a lot outside so i don't like to dress too warm.

My first friend's house had 2 of these. Not the same one, but the same size.

They're just too small for a house that completely relies on wood heat. I hate these mofo teeny stoves.

The f@g who nearly froze to death had one of these.

Lucky SOB didn't even use it.

I like a stove at least twice the volume of the steel barrel version. That's the kind you can toss huge logs into and not need to stoke the fire for like 4 hours.

[Mika]

Are those stoves metallic?

Our stoves here are generally made of stone and their sizes are more like 2 m x 2 m x 4 m. It is larger since the hot smoke is circulated around the outer walls of the stove. This causes one extra warmth collection phase. It is pretty neat heating system, and there is no need to wake up at night to add more wood.

One of my colleagues joked he engineered his house in a way he can get through the winter with 5 cubic meters of burning wood.

Mika