
75% of the US will suffer below-freezing temps this week - LinuxBender
https://lite.cnn.io/en/article/h_396c1cebaabf10f1f4e74fdae10407d3
======
goda90
As someone from the midwest, below-freezing is no big deal(so suffer seems
like a silly word). I'm curious how much will suffer below 0F(~-18C) this
week. We certainly will, and the wind chill won't help.

~~~
scrooched_moose
Also midwest, and below freezing is fine and below 0 is annoying. This
potential -60F windchill through Minnesota on Wednesday is terrifying. The
worst I've ever experienced is -40 and it was brutal.

[https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/national/weather-
forecast-...](https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/national/weather-forecast-
maps?day=3) (third map)

~~~
upofadown
Once the windchill gets beyond -40C/F it doesn't really matter anymore. Any
exposed skin is just as frozen. Your eyelashes are still sticking together.

It would probably be better to just report it as some sort of "scarf required"
zone followed by "scarf required and it might be a bit uncomfortable" zone.

------
rffn
What do they mean by "suffer"? Isn't this normal in winter?

~~~
EpicEng
They wanted the 75% number, but if you look at e.g. the mid-west it's going to
be insanely cold (I grew up there; it's expected to be cold right now, but
this is something else.)

It's colder than it typically is almost everywhere, so for people who live in
the north it's a big deal. For people who live in the south and don't plan for
freezing temps... also a big-ish deal.

~~~
berdon
Fwiw, in South Dakota, where generally most winter days would be <0F, we've
abnormally averaged well above that this winter. Our average is probably
something closer to around 25-30.

Now, Wednesday, we'll be < -20F, which is cold, but nothing we haven't dealt
with before and nothing entirely out of the normal. If anything, winter has
been abnormally warmer for us.

~~~
RickJWagner
Hi Berdon!

I grew up in Mitchell, but left about 30 years ago. As a youth, I had a paper
route and vividly remember walking backwards on some cold days to keep the
wind out of my face.

Good luck with this upcoming cold snap!

------
mal10c
I'm from the midwest and it's been pretty darn cold the last few days. This
week is supposed to have a low around -30. I live pretty far out in the
country, so I've stocked up my truck with extra hats and coveralls (which I
call my bunny suit), and an extra set of boots.

This morning I saw a few cars in the ditch after some ice last night, so
stopped to see if anyone needed a ride or just to get out of the cold. In
these temperatures, I try to be a little extra mindful of neighbors in need
and helping people who are stranded.

Good news though, it's going to be much warmer this weekend, so something to
look forward to!

------
mooman219
Weather patterns the past week have been very all over the place. It looks
like we'll be in an El Niño weather pattern this winter/spring which will make
it feel a bit warmer. The polar vortex also is spilling out due to the higher
temperatures, which will ironically lead to cooler temperatures in Canada/US
like the article mentions.

I'm sure this was linked to HN because of larger climate change concerns.
Average global temperatures are increasing, but short term periods of warming
and cooling are pretty cyclical.

~~~
borkt
Yep, weather != climate, and it goes both ways. Glad the article didn't try to
push any climate aspect.

------
citilife
It's supposed to be -18 in mid-Illinois, with a windchill of -48. This
typically happens once or twice a year - not fun, three days later it's
supposed to be mid-50's.

Gotta love the 70+ degree swings.

I just want consistent weather, i.e. minimize the distance between the weekly
minimum / maximum. Is that too much to ask?

~~~
dgzl
Central Illinois was my first time experiencing freezing rain. Leaving work,
everyone had to spend 30+ minutes chiseling an inch of ice off their
windshield with their car blasting heat, while being rained on and whipped
with strong wind.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
That sheet of ice over your whole car isn't too bad if you can figure out the
right amount of force to crack the ice without also cracking your windshield.
:D

One day last week I spent my time after work removing it off my car, then
driving to where my friend works, and removing it off her car too.

~~~
dgzl
Yeah... Gripping and flipping a sheet of ice off a windshield is surprisingly
satisfying.

~~~
thb567
Same feeling here 4000 miles away from US, that's probably just an old almost
forgotten reflex from the last ice age

------
tom_
The actual headline is "75% of the US _population_ " \- something really
rather different indeed.

~~~
jandrese
75% of the US Land Area would be kind of a snoozer headline since that would
include Alaska.

------
excalibur
Below freezing is nothing, but the people who understand this will see
temperatures FAR below that.

------
himynameisdom
Living in Ohio, we're well equipped to handle this. Will be thinking about
everyone else who may not be use to these types of conditions. Stay smart,
safe, and somehow warm everyone!

------
rdm_blackhole
Meanwhile, in Oz, we are having one of the hottest Summer on record.

------
Veelox
Its a great week to live in the Bay Area.

~~~
masonic
Tomorrow's forecast is 2-3 inches of auto window glass in most parking lots.

------
modzu
and if you're wondering, that's probably 100% for us canadians lol

------
kushti
How many homeless people in the US are dying per day under such conditions?

~~~
himynameisdom
This may be a good place to start:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5739436/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5739436/)

Conclusion: Our results indicate excessive mortality among the homeless as
well as the weak and rather typical influence of atmospheric conditions on
mortality rates in this subpopulation, except for a greater risk of cold
related deaths than in the general population... Deaths caused by hypothermia
were thirteen-fold more frequently recorded among the homeless than for the
general population. A relative risk of death for a homeless person even in
moderate cold stress conditions is higher (RR = 1.84) than in thermoneutral
conditions.

------
gowld
Big thank you for that lite.cnn.io URL variant.

Very apropos to HN. The home page is beautiful:
[http://lite.cnn.io/en](http://lite.cnn.io/en)

~~~
enlyth
I disagree, the lite edition significantly deteriorated my user experience.

On a wide 4K monitor, the text is not centred, stretching from the far left to
the far right, making it very difficult to continuously read a sentence from
left to right. Limits like 80 characters per line exist for a reason.

The text is formatted in a very annoying manner, line by line, sentence by
sentence, like it was spit out by a debugger in a terminal. I'm trying to
compare this to the experience of reading a column in a newspaper with proper
typography and visual layout.

The page already loads a css stylesheet which is mostly empty, for whatever
reason, and also tries to load an analytics plugin with javascript, so I don't
see the reason to omit basic stylesheets to at least make it readable.

Compared to the "full" version with an adblocker, even with JS disabled, in my
eyes it's still a significant step down.

~~~
bmeski
It was not meant for a 4k desktop. It was meant for mobile devices.

