In British Columbia, it's been a lot colder than it has been since my first arrival in the province. Presently, I'm vacationing in Quebec to see family, and the temperature's as I remember it, which is just plain cold (it's 0 F over here not counting wind, and again, that's normal).

Currently, it's -11 degrees here in Chicago, minus the wind chill factor.

All schools and most businesses are still shutdown. It's pretty terrifying, knowing how cold it's getting. Yesterday, as the sun rose that morning, the temperature actually dropped.

Start pulling your weight, global warming!

Welcome to Global Warming.

I live in this madness too... And the only thing that's pissing me off about it is the barometric pressure that's constantly changing. It's giving me nasty sinus migraines and it's getting quite tiresome.

Poor Southerners.

For perspective: in Finland the limit to not have to go outside to spend the recess in school is -4° Fahrenheit. In -11°F everybody still cycles or skis to school as ever before and -22°F is commonly the limit for the parents to drive the kids to the school. Even in -31°F kids go to school, builders build houses outside and such. -40°F is a limit in which Finland and Russia would have to take a break from waging war, that would be "too immoral".
True story. Anyway, be careful out there. Adapt to the environment.

Here in Chicago, -40 degrees equals death by hypothermia. lol

Hell, even -30 degrees has the potential to cause death. You Finland natives got spunk! lol

I know way too many people who don't know how to dress warm for cold climates. They speak as if the cold is a brand new thing that entered this world.

I'm used to this weather. I've marched in the coldest Macy's Thanksgiving Parade to date and underneath my uniform, i was dreadfully warm... except for my toes. Marching shoes are not comfortable, and wearing two pairs of socks wasn't helping. If I HAVE to go outside, I put layers upon layers of clothes to keep me warm. I've seen people who just think a small coat that ends at the waist will keep them warm.

Uh, no.

Hat, scarf, gloves (two if they're the wool), a long coat that ends at least midway to the thighs, snowboots, heavy socks (or two pairs if you don't have heavy).

It's really not that hard to dress warm during this kind of weather. I just don't understand people. I've also seen children with nothing protecting their face. This weather gave me chapped lips because I didn't have a scarf around my mouth when I went shoveling. Those kids' faces must have been in pain for a good bit.

Chapped lips suck.

I live in New England, we're used to bad weather. While we haven't had it as bad as the midwest does, this year still sucks with how cold it's been.

I'd love nothing more than to just drop everything and take off for Florida, SoCal or Hawaii for a few months.

To be fair, the Guardian newpaper just released their view on the Nordic countries called "The Almost Nearly Perfect People – The Truth About the Nordic Miracle" where they aimed at mostly complaining about each of these countries. Finns were called "suicidal drinkers", Swedes "fail in democracy", Norwegians are 'xenophobic' and Danes "eat a lot of pills".

I'm coming to my point: a Finnish news writer threw the ball back to the Guardian magazine by criticising the Great Britain. In it, he brought up how London was allegedly in a "snow chaos" when it snowed two inches in a day – in Finland that is called 'winter'. He also wrote on how Brits binge.

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To further elaborate on our culture, if you're interested: if you wear more than jeans and boxers on your legs in -11°F, chances are you are called a pussy (if you're a male teenager.) The military service is compulsory to all male Finns and most of them are brought to the arctic area, Lapland, for weeks to camp in tents. There the soldiers practise shooting, are being trained outside and they ski for dozens of miles with heavy backbags. And the temperature could easily be -40°F any winter – so cold that your iron spoon can attach to your lips. The summer on the contrary is very hot.

Our specialty in winter warfare is one of the reasons why we overcame alone both the Nazis and the Soviets who invaded this little nation.

But we aren't as content about our tolerance of cold as much as that of heat however: we have one sauna almost for every other Finn here and that's the place where the toughest of the toughest is usually found.In +230°F breathing is not easy.As my mom said: winter is fun when you wear the right clothing – so you'll feel comfortable – but there is no escape of sweat in the summer heat.So true; Florida and California would be wonderful right now. Our favorite vacation locations are Spanish and Mediterranean in general though.
All the same, be reasonable. It takes more than one occasion to get used to weather conditions like in Chicago right now.

In Missouri, the wind has been crazy. up to 55 MPH. my neighbor thought it would be smart to burn some disposables, and damn near burnt down the whole neighborhood. dick.

it is really cold too, the snow we had a few weeks back was the craziest I had ever seen.

I hate cold.

About time someone gave us the sympathy we deserve.

Shit like this is not supposed to happen here. Took my dog outside this afternoon and I think my hands went numb. Then tonight there was sleet. There's NEVER sleet this far down in Georgia.

I blame DaMo.

That's very true. Very true indeed.

I also did notice the crappy weather system that's hitting the south. ABC7 just did a report on that as I type this post about what's happening in Atlanta. I guess those in the eastern states are kinda enjoying the fact that they don't have to deal with this weather.

I really don't mind it. I mean I have nowhere to go. All I'm really doing is nothing but job hunting since I'm done with school. But I will say this; the weather really should start behaving around the middle of February.

I wouldn't mind that random 85 degree day we had in March last year. I really wouldn't.

I love how everybody's talking about -40 weather as if it's the end of the world or something; personally, I think ski conditions improve significantly at that temperature.
Fun fact? -40 degrees is the only point in temperature that is exactly the same in Fahrenheit and Celsius!
But essentially, Zmoke's right, all you really need to get by on that is warm clothing and layers. Honestly, long underwear makes all the difference between, "let's make this a brisk walk to the bus stop," and, "holy fuck, it hurts to move my legs!"

I see this more on Facebook, they say it like cold weather is a new discovery on Earth these days.

But an interesting conversation struck up between my family and I about school closings. My sister-in-law thought that it was kind of foolish to have some of the schools close because children walk to school. All they should do is bundle up.

But the problem is that they don't just close because there's children walking to school in the cold. They close because they test to see how long it takes to get frostbite, and if they think it's too dangerous for children just to walk a block to school, they'll make sure to close it. It's got nothing to do with if the teachers can make it to the building or not.

But I have to laugh back when I was in high school. Many people would complain when we get snow, why we're like the only school that's open and all the others are closed. We were like the only school that had no bus system. The only buses that were being used were for the special needs students and that's it. Everyone else got to school either by walking, biking, driving, being driven, etc. Even one year, we had this constant storm that literally flooded our parking lot. Didn't close, but there were schools that were closed because of this storm.

I think it's just funny how schools and colleges close based on conditions. People are nagging on Facebook about how their classes are still on. Colleges are very hard to close down. Three years ago when Chicago got hit with this giant snowstorm, classes were still on, but any class that was on passed 6:20PM were closed.

I mean... still, classes were still going on despite this giant storm was approaching. School closings aren't really that fun anyways, most of the time you have to make it up. And for colleges, you're missing a day. (And when you have one class per week, missing that is extremely sucky.)

Doesn't a pee stream insta-freeze at -40? I'd think that would be the end of anyone's world if they gotta go outside.

Nope, even at -72 it wouldn't freeze.

Mythbusters did something about freezing pee.

That's a shame. I was gonna tell everyone the toilet's broken so they'll have to go outside. Maybe I can still trick them into getting their tongue stuck onto whatever they pee on.

Also is that sig from that movie Frozen? Why you gotta mock the rest of us that aren't smiling in this weather?

Heh, you could still trick people without telling them that

Good point.

Question: Does this yellow-colored lamp post taste funny to you?

Minus forty is rather harsh if you have to stay still for several hours outside on the snow, otherwise you could even ride a bicycle if you wear scarves. But your eyeballs might move slower and your teeth feel like falling off.