What is the coldest wind chill ever recorded?

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by pluto2, Mar 31, 2009.

  1. milkweed Valued Senior Member

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    1,654
    Yeah, thats cold.

    Worst one I went through was 93 hours of below zero temps in 1996. Duluth MN went 186 hours below zero that same year. This year we had 86 hours below zero. Nothing like a tv weather guy announcing "the high today is expected to reach -2". -24 (air temp) when I left for work one morning that week and the temp dropped to -26 before it began to rise again. With cold like that, you create your own windchill just walking. Its kinda weird how sound carries in the extreme cold, you can hear mice under the snow and other animals walking around in the woods. Trees pop like a gun has been shot, getting big cracks in them. The cracks usually heal up leaving a slight scar.

    Every person should experience -20 air temp at least once in their life.
     
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  3. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    I've slept outside in -40(doesn't matter what system you use at -40) and it really DOESN'T matter what the fuck the wind chill is. I forget the exact temp, but all water vapor becomes solid at some point and it's a moot point because any exposed skin, or body area to the elements...is fucked. So wind chill doesn't matter.

    Every person should experience -20, for a month. You should see how nice Edmontonians are to each other in January, it's actually kinda freaky. I have a theory on this being a reason far northern counties are often peaceful....well at least in modern times. It's a realization that the planet really doesn't give a fuck if you live or die...so you are kinda in "it" together with everyone else. Man/Woman/child(yes I DID WALK IN A FOOT OF SNOW FOR A MILE AT -20 TO SCHOOL) VS Nature, cold and uncaring.
     
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  5. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

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    I have slept out at those temperatures and saw a tree explode from the freezing temperature, it split in half, it was just after sunrise.

    Built a snow shelter in a drift bank against a hill, and it actually wasn't that bad inside the shelter,me and the three other guys on the survival course actually had the temperature inside up to +30 in our snow cave.

    I remember walking to school at 20 below in the 60tys, and that was a mile, to school and a mile back, we had to cross a bridge over the Wisconsin River, and that was the coldest 90 feet of the whole walk, over that river.
     
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  7. milkweed Valued Senior Member

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    Like I said, once you hit -20 (windchill or air temp) it doesnt matter any more.

    And you dont need to experience it for a month. One day/night is enough. After that its just punishment.
     
  8. milkweed Valued Senior Member

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    You PAID people to teach you that? Wow. We grew up building our own to play in.
     
  9. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

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    No I got paid to do that stuff, it was called Arctic Survival Training, and was part of my education under Uncle Sam's tutelage.
     
  10. milkweed Valued Senior Member

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    Ah Ha!

    I didnt think you would pay someone for that. Read a book about it Sure. Uncle Sam training course makes even more sense.
     
  11. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    Mine was Arctic survival training also (but really in the Arctic, I assume Buff was in Alaska, I was in the NW Territories) .

    You had to survive 3 weeks, on a week's worth of rations. Had to somehow find extra food(mostly rabbits), build a shelter out of parachutes, etc. In -40 or worse.

    Then I went home in Edmonton for -20 to -30C weather and it was balmy.

    Yeah a day of -20 is fuck all.
     
  12. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

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    Yep out of Fort Wainwright, Black Rapids Glacier, Alaska January-February, never even saw the sun, dam was I glad to get back to Ft. Hood Texas.

    They were bitching because it had gone below 32f, 0c for the months of January and February.

    I laughed my ass off, dam that was that funny.
     
  13. Xylene Valued Senior Member

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    I heard that in Stalingrad, German soldiers were dying when they went to relieve themselves outside because the cold was so intense.
     
  14. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    Bad Head gear and even worse- bad foot gear. Their jack boots drained heat so fast out of their bodies, the troops that did not freeze found interesting ways to keep their feet warm.

    Improvising head gear is easy, well maybe not easy to be able to fight in - foot gear is really hard to improvise.
     
  15. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    It was pretty damn cold the day I forgot our wedding anniversary.
     
  16. ThinkingMansCrumpet Registered Member

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    That's impressive! The day you arrived and it beat the old 'hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth' by a full twenty degrees F.
     
  17. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

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    I have a picture of a German Soldier standing Guard in Russia wearing a set of boots made from rushes, woven into boots, stuffed with grass, according to the story they were purchased from the local Russian and made excellent winter foot wear, keeping the feet warm and dry.

    The Lapp's used a similar idea, leather winter moccasins stuffed with grasses.
     
  18. Thoreau Valued Senior Member

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    Excuse me while I actually pull up the picture of the thermostat from that day. Might be a few hours before I can get to it since I'm at work and have better things to do at the current moment.
     
  19. ThinkingMansCrumpet Registered Member

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    95
    Yes, well, being the highly educated bright spark that you are, you'll realise before you do post it that if it's not in the shade it doesn't count.

    Oh shit, it was in the sun wasn't it.
    Good thing you know how to kill!...Oh Shite!..*can of worms*
     
  20. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    I am always suspicious of individuals who would rather believe their own observations than the evidence.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  21. Thoreau Valued Senior Member

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    Lay off of the insults, pal. You, being a new guy (or gal) around here, should be wise enough to at least learn something about the people before blindly insulting them.

    And no, I was not aware that it had to be in shade. If you are standing in direct sunlight, is that not the temperature that you are feeling? In other words, if the thermostat (in direct sunlight) states 148*F, is it not the same when you are standing in it as well?
     
  22. Xylene Valued Senior Member

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    Still on subject...sort of

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    During their Winter War against Russian troops in 1940-1General Mannerheim issued his Finnish troops with boots that were one size too large so they could wear two pairs of socks.

    Regarding the wind chill record, I'd say any reading from Mount Washington, which is notoriously windy, and literally deadly cold in Winter.
     
  23. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    I'm not new and my post was not a blind insult, just an insult.

    The temperature that is important is air temperature. This is the temperature that is reported in meteorological and climatological studies and reports.

    Objects in direct sunlight will absorb heat, whether they are rocks, trees, lizards, or thermometers (not thermostats). Their temperature can rise significantly above that of the air temperature (most of the heating of the air is indirect heating from the ground, not from the passage of sunlight through the air).

    So a thermometer exposed to the direct rays of the sun will absorb heat from the sun and radiate a portion of that heat to the surrounding air until an equilibrium is established. That equilibrium will be at a much higher temperature than the shade temperature. The shade temperature is the only one which has signficance (unless you are a lizard trying to run across hot desert sand).
     

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