My first real winter since 2022.

[glowingfish]

A bit of relevant backstory:
From October of 2023 to March of 2024, I was in Costa Rica.
From October of 2024 to April of 2025, I was in Costa Rica again.

In between, I did experience a few places with cold. But not the middle of winter, and not long, long dark hours.

So right now, I am preparing myself for both. I am in Spokane, and we had our first frost, and daytime temperatures are hovering around 10C/50F. And it is getting dark earlier and earlier. Before long, we will be in the middle of winter...and all I will want to do is sleep and eat.
Lets see how I adjust to that...

Comments

[kiramori]

Never had a "real winter" in Brazil, how cold does it have to get for you to say "yeah, this is a rough winter"?

[glowingfish]

That is a great question!
Because wet and cold and dark have a lot to do with it. So 10C when its dark 16 hours a day is harder than -10C when its dark "only" 14 hours a day.

Another thing is, as far as the danger of the cold---skin loses heat something like 40 times faster when it is wet. So the temperatures around -2 to 2C are actually more dangerous than -10C, because they are usually warm enough where there is rain mixed with snow, and it covers your clothing and gets them wet. Sometimes, even down to -10C or lower, it is really dry, and as long as you are insulated, you are safe, more or less. But the mushy slushy cold that happens right around freezing can be very dangerous...and even when it isn't, it is miserable.

[kiramori]

That's interesting and honestly quite scary. I've always wanted to go to a cold country and see snow, but getting frostbitten doesn't seems that great and I know there's lots of scary things you can experience in the cold.

Last winter I think the coldest it ever got here was something like 15°C, it's a very confortable temperature but i really wish we had some colder days in winter.

[glowingfish]

It is one of those things that isn't scary if you've been around it all your life. We just prepare for it and know when to not go out.

And another thing is that statistically, a lot more people die from heat than from cold. Your body has ways of dealing with cold, even if you aren't prepared. But it has more limited ways of dealing with heat.

[kiramori]

Well, I wonder if deaths related to heat are something exclusive to some really hot and dry countries. Brazil is pretty humid, and while we have very intense hot days sometimes, I don't ever see news of people dying from heatstroke, so there must be scarier heat elsewhere.