The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday at noon.
Today’s question:
QUESTION: What’s the coldest temperature you’ve ever experienced? Also, tell us the year (estimate) and location.
Talk about it….
Think it was in December of 2007,…temp was in the high 20’s.
Was on a outing in Benicia, cold, cloudy, foggy and damp.
Was not quite dressed warm enough, with open toed shoes.
Even though it was for 2 hours, ended up with frostbite on the bottom of 2 toes a day later. Learned that fashion forward was not worth it,… LOL!
Not real cold, but the coldest I’ve ever experienced was the winter of ’09 in the Nevada desert near Elko, when it was 10 degrees. As long as I was moving and doing something, it wasn’t too bad. We built a snowman and had snowball fights, it was fun.
Winter graduation for a son at Boulder Colorado. Fifty below zero and windy.
-20 F. The bridge over the Ural river in Atyrau had a sign. (Kazakhstan) When I was lived there I would put all my clothes and coats on and walk down to the gym. After a nice swim in the pool, indoor of course. Anatoly, the life guard would watch me swim back and forth for a while. A few minutes in the sauna and then I’d suit up. Walking home, about 3 blocks. When I got home I would hang up my swimsuit on the line out back. And sure enough it would be hard as a rock after a little while. Good times.
Two years ago, Califon New Jersey, -18
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-52 degrees.
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VXE-6
Operation Deep Freeze 1991, Antarctica
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-30’s. WI winters are no joke. No going outside with any flesh exposed. Need to plug in your car or it won’t start. Pipes freeze. So not fun!
In February 1988, Knoxville was -24° and was the coldest place in the nation. We were even colder than International Falls, Minnesota, which frequently has that honor. The kids enjoyed playing in the snow a lot more than I enjoyed shoveling it.
Yes, I was there. And we had the blizzard of ‘93. Maybe not quite as cold but there was about 2 ft of snow in 1 day.
Not sure, even though I grew up in Denmark, Denmark is not as cold as most people think, since we are surrounded by water and the gulf stream, it actually feel much colder when it right around freezing and humid than when we have i frost and dry weather. I lived in Connecticut and New York, and both gets snow and frost, New York feel very cold when it is windy, seems like the wind gets trapped by the tall buildings and just rip into you if you are walking outside.
I visited Denver Colorado in December of 1982 and I remember it was very cold, but not sure of the actually temperature.
Mark Twain famously said the coldest winter he ever experienced was a summer in San Francisco.
-18. Detroit 1976. Not counting wind chill factor
-28 degrees in 1989 when I was living back in my hometown in southeastern Washington. I was playing in a band that was at a Elks Club in a town about 20 miles away and called to see if they were going to be open that night and they replied “sure, everyone goes from their heated garage to the club driving on their studded tires”. I had studded tires on my Subaru wagon just to get around icy roads.
Sub zero weather in the winter along with 2′ snow drifts was not unusual for that region. The house was electrically heated and electricity was cheap due to all the dams in the area.
” The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco “
Mark Twain
-30 below with -55 below wind chill in Minneapolis. Used to entertain myself while snowblowing the driveway by taking a half cup of hot coffee and throwing it up in the air then watching it freeze before it hit the ground. OTOH those people know how to deal with snow. We’d get a foot and the streets would be plowed by 6:30am, not even a snow day for the kids. One other time we got 31 inches of snow on Halloween. That shut things down a bit. But just a bit.
Brett Favres last game as a Packer. 2008 NFC championship game in Green Bay . -20s with the wind chill
Spend a some time in Madison Wisconsin, since my ex husband was from there, it gets cold, but don’t remember it being any colder than New York or Denmark, of course I only visited frequently. Growing up with snow was fun, we would ski, cross country, sleighing down a fairly small hill, build snowmen and have snow ball fights. Or gliding on the ice when shallow water froze over.
Visiting Missoula, MT several times where it ran in the mid -20’s. Went to a UM Grizzly football playoff game a few years ago in December where it was -4 degrees inside the stadium at kickoff. And, yes, the stadium was full (~24,000 bundled fans)
Played in a football game against Colorado State in Fort Collins, sunny day, just cold as all get out. I think it was in the teens with wind.
20 degrees with a strong wind, around 0 with the wind chill. It was around 2005, walking from the rental car return to the airport terminal in Dayton OH on a business trip.
couple years come to mind…in college, January 1985 it was flipping cold, like -30, and with the wind off Lake Michigan, felt worse, for the few minutes we went outside. The other time was February 1995 (I think it was ’95, I know it was Feb), had to be about the same, -20, -30, not sure if there was wind that day. The oil in the pans froze, couldn’t start the car (had to push them into a garage and then put steaming water underneath to soften), so had to walk, got minor frostbite on my earlobes that became exposed…..bitter bitter cold.
I see I failed to mention where, this was in Chicago.
Same weekend, also in college, it was MLK weekend, I was skiing in southeast Ohio with dorm mates. -59 windchill. Could only make it down the slopes 4 times. Our group went around singing to other tables raising beer money and drank “for free” all day.
I was in Chicago for a training class. I arrived at O’Hare around 8p.m.and stepped out of the shelter door foyer and into the outside walk. I could not believe how cold it was! I have experienced 15 deg or lower temps in Texas but nothing like -17!! I was stunned for a moment but recovered to get on my waiting hotel shuttle. This was in mid-January of 1980.
Jeff, hen my husband was still a First Officer for United, their main hub was O’Hare. He would have to do his pre-flight walk-around inspection in that mess. The company issued him a dark blue wool coat (which it turned out was really Naval officers’ issue). I remember his telling funny stories to our children about “Why, it was SOOOOO cold that ….. etc.”
At that same airport, I was a passenger on a liner which crabbed at one of the turns in its take-off line. The aircraft fish-tailed just a tiny bit into a runway snowbank …. no one hurt, but because it was on the take-off tarmac approach, the plane had to be towed out of the way. We had to deplane into buses to be ferried back to the terminal. It was only a few minutes outside…. but I’ll tell you what…. that sharp blast coming in off the Great Lakes left me shivering for a long time!
Were you cockpit crew?
-40 deg F with wind chill. Was skiing in northeast PA. Could only take one run at a time as you almost froze coming up on the chair lift.
1980’s Wyoming.
−320 °F
First in a doctor’s office and then in my lab. Liquid nitrogen, topically applied to a plantar wart.
30 below in the Uinta mountains of Utah……..at some point extreme cold is all the same 10 below 20 below, whatever
The coldest temperature must be that of my ex’s heart. A number doesn’t exist that comes close to measuring it.
@Just a Thought….The King of Country…https://youtu.be/-yCQraOX4Bw
1963 don’t remember the temp. But there had been snow, then icy rain, then a hard freeze. I remember it well because I had never been so cold but outside all the trees and bushes looked like they were encased in clear diamonds.
Santa Rosa 1988/89. They said it was the coldest in recorded history. Pipes would freeze, as well as the actual faucets. Replace them, they’d crack that night and need to be replaced again. We had bought a hundred year old farmhouse with only a wood stove for heat. I was not a happy camper.
Quebec, February 1968 -22 not counting the wind chill factor. Evertime you would inhail outside, it felt like your body was about to go into a shock of some sort.
About -60 (Celsius) with wind chill while growing up in Canada. I had to wear ski goggle while shoveling my sidewalk, since the news was warning that exposed skin would freeze in about 30 seconds. In the winter I would shower after school rather than before to avoid having my hair freeze while waiting at the bus stop.
I still find it funny that a lot of people don’t know what a block heater is!
Good times 🙂
Alaska negative 40+ below zero
A blind date in college
243 K
NEGATIVE 37-Not counting wind chill factor in Kotzebue, Alaska in one January some years ago. The temperature was scrolling on an outdoor sign, and I wanted a picture of it-But everytime it started scrolling I had to run back inside to warm up