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What's worse, shoveling snow or sweating uncontrollably just to mow the lawn? The heat rash, infections and illness aren't just for a few weeks but for 9 months or more. It's November and I was sweating enough to soak my whole shirt and part of my pants, just raking up some leaves for 20 minutes! By the way, have you ever been in Miami traffic when it's 98 degrees outside and you have no air conditioning? You can die in a few minutes from heat exhaustion, but can survive a lot longer in cold conditions. I have been waiting since last April to clean my garage. Maybe this weekend we get a cold front that makes this possible. i am tired of waiting for a break in the heat.
Everyone says cold is worse than heat, even my mother would take the heat anyday over cold. At least with cold you can wear a jacket to keep warm. Even if its -30 and windy, how long will it take you to freeze to death provided you wear a jacket? If its too hot, you better have air condition or you could(literally) melt to death! Its very dangerous to be in a hot car without a/c I read the news of people who melted(literally) away!
By the way, I had to turn the a/c down another notch. I am sweating and its the middle of November, middle of fall! I have decided I want to move to a cooler climate so no Texas for me. Not even sure about Georgia. I dont need -20 weather but weather that stays above zero is fine. OH(especially the south) and WV should stay above zero, they arent such high latitudes.
A component for fighting both the extreme heat & cold is water! You can dehydrate just as easy in the cold when you're not fully hydrated as you can in the heat
In my experience having lived in both kinds of climates (Central California and Las Vegas in the Mojave Desert, and Bemidji, Minnesota and Chicago, Illinois), I think cold or heat extremes pretty much result in the same problem...you're bound to the house. It's very difficult to do work outside when it's below 20F and excruciating when it's 0F or lower. Heat is a bit different... It's also restricting, but I think that's even more so for humid heat where any exertion is magnified by the the humidity and heats you up much more quickly. It's true in extreme cold you can put more clothes on, but everything you do then is based on being dressed in five to six layers of clothes and just hope you don't get a stomach flu when to get to the toilet requires a few minutes of clothing removal!
Where I live now I think is almost perfect between the two. It gets very cold, but it's manageable. Summer is hot and humid, but evenings cool down nicely and there are lots of thunderstorm days that briefly cool things down.
The body's dominant forms of heat loss in a hot environment are radiation and evaporation. However, when air temperature exceeds 95°F (35°C), radiation of heat from the body ceases and evaporation becomes the only means of heat loss.
Classic heatstroke more commonly develops during heat waves when air temperatures exceed 102.5°F (39.2°C) for 3 or more consecutive days
Florida can get hot enough to be dangerous. Someone mentioned it being 120 in south Dakota as a record! That kind of heat can kill thousands of people!
Everyone says cold is worse than heat, even my mother would take the heat anyday over cold. At least with cold you can wear a jacket to keep warm. Even if its -30 and windy, how long will it take you to freeze to death provided you wear a jacket? If its too hot, you better have air condition or you could(literally) melt to death! Its very dangerous to be in a hot car without a/c I read the news of people who melted(literally) away!
Yes it is hard to die from the cold.
But for me I would also consider the possibility of losing a fingers, toes or part of an ear to be equally as dangerous. Maybe other people don't like their fingers as much as I do mine.
Part of that is because to die your internal oragans and brain have to shut down and they have plenty of warm blood pumping through them all the time. They also tend to be convienently located in the thickest sections of our body.
The difference is with cold (below freezing) it is easy to get frost bite, which is cell damage to extremities like fingers, toes, tips of your nose, ears etc. because not as much blood flow to them. Also it's a natural reaction for most people's bodies to restrict the flow even further when it senses extreme cold. That keeps more warm blood for the internal organs.
Air at 115 F will not cause people irrepairable damage to their fingers, but it will slowly overheat someone. Think of how our body temp is 96-98 F and there is less than 20 F difference between that. That's why the heating is slow and even. Now take 0 F for example, it's almost 100 F below body temp so it's easy for it to quickly effect just the surface.
Anyone who's familiar with baking or cooking would understand this difference.
Also like I said before, internal organs are in the thickest sections of our body. This would also make it more difficult to radiate heat once they have been slowly overheated, compared to your fingers for example.
Also, the idea of radiation being impossible at 95 F is probably a generality and partially incorrect, depending on the person. While our body is normally around 96-98 F, excersize produces extra heat from combining glucose (or food energy) with oxygen. That'd where the expression "burning calories" comes from. With heavy excersize, it could be possible to have very hot muscles, like well above 100 F, perhaps above 105 F.
When people have fevers, they can also get this hot. This heat also is generated interally, proving the bodies capability to make heat at a high temp.
I am a thin person and I believe I have felt cooling from radiation, as well as sweating in temps as high as 97 F. That would be due to the point mentioned above where muscles can get much hotter when excersizing. As you would expect, the higher % of body fat you have, the more difficult radiaition becomes as fat is an insulator.
I would agree however that at or above 95 F (away from the sun), significant cooling for the body by radiation is not really noticeable and perhaps impossible for some people.
Am I correct that theres no frostbite danger at above freezing? The temps could be 35 degrees with windchill and you wont clinically "freeze" although you could get hypothermia but no frostbite. Just dress warm and you wont be in danger at 35 degrees. Your exposed ears and nose wont frostbite. At zero degrees you have to cover yourself head to toe like this:
I cant find more good examples but look up fur coat. Ill need a scarf, boots, gloves, earmuffs and everything to cover every inch of my body except my eyes(leave slits) so I can see thru them.
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