I talk about this effect a lot in person because it keeps amazing me, not that it’s particularly insightful, but I love nature and this effect is part of it.
If the temperature drops below 50F (10C) in September, I shiver and can barely stand it. I have to bundle up.
Then in December it drops below freezing and 50F feels warm.
I’m commenting on it now because we’re in a two week period where the temperature will go above freezing for a few hours. For the past week, before I go outside, when I check the temperature, it’s often around 10F (-12C). Then I go out and I feel fine. I mean, the air feels bitter to my skin, but it’s not that bad.
I spent a winter in Madison, Wisconsin, where a typical low in January is -10F (-23C), so I know this temperature isn’t that cold and I just read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, so I know, but I consider it still pretty cold.
The point, though is how readily the body acclimatizes to the temperature. If it hit 50F tomorrow, I’d consider wearing shorts.
I might be influenced by breaking a sweat in another day like the one I wrote about in my post last week in Wow, some hard work volunteering in the cold yesterday and today. I spent over an hour hauling hundreds of pounds of donated food to distribute it to people who could use it. Today is a lifting day, so I did it after lifting. I was tired and sweaty in around 10F weather.
Anyway, the point is just my appreciating another aspect of the beauty of nature in human resilience.
