What is more miserable, really hot weather or cold?

[Kaeden]

I live in Northern California, outside Sacramento and we get a pretty decent amount of both throughout the year and with my friends and family we seem to be pretty split on what we think is worse. Personally I'll take the mid 20F's over the 110F's any day of the week, absolutely hate sweating and being sticky, etc. Luckily we don't get an insane amount of either... just enough to temporarily wish we had the other. Haha.

So what does Era find to be worse?

edit: for clarity, I'm referring to extremes of both, not just hot versus cold, sorry poll choices might have caused confusion

 

[Volimar]

I love to be cold and bundle up, so this is an easy choice for me.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

There is no realistic context where I would prefer hot weather to cold weather.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Cold sucks. Feet of snow and impossible to get anywhere.

 

[Dark Knight]

Hot weather is just indefensibly worse. The only way to fight it(consistently) is good air conditioning, where as with cold you could utilize layers, blankets, various heat sources, etc. And this is coming from someone whose house gets cold as fuck in the winter.

 

[Porygon]

Hot weather is worst

You can cover yourself and feel less cold

Unless you are in an area with an air conditioner, good luck with the heath

 

[gradam01]

Hot. I can add a layer when cold, but there's nothing I can do when it's hot.

 

[Londolian]

I'd take cold weather over hot any day. Living in Cali is like hell on Earth right now.

 

[super-famicom]

With cold weather I can bundle up or go into a kotatsu. With hot weather I can strip down but still feel miserable.

It's gonna be 110 for the rest of the week over here, not looking forward to it. 🥵🥵🥵

 

[Pall Mall]

The cold you can escape from with extra clothing. Excessive heat is inescapable outside, and inside as well if you're without good AC.

 

[Huntersknoll]

I'm fine with cold weather. I love the cold. Hot weather can hit the bricks.

 

[Kaeden]

Yeah I agree with most that you can just layer up more and more when it gets really cold but some people I know actually have physical pain with the cold and it takes them a while to get comfortable. Hopefully most don't have to deal with that and then I think it's an easy choice to be cold over hot.

 

[alr1ght]

"Cold" weather in California. Hah.

Actual cold weather with snow is the absolute worst. Every day is worse than the last.

 

[Chaos Legion]

The cold you can escape from with extra clothing. Excessive heat is inescapable outside, and inside as well if you're without good AC.

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[butzopower]

Cold to me is like -20 and I will take being 40 over that.

 

[Walter White Walker]

Easily hot weather.

 

[Maximum Spider]

They both suck. I dislike cold weather because it's so hard to travel outside, especially if you walk to work like me. I also cannot stand how dark it gets during the winter months. The lack of bright skies legit makes me depressed.

 

[thebeeks]

Hot, but I say this as someone who's lived in Texas all their life. I have family in upstate NY and Chicago so I've been to cold places, but it's usually for only a handful of days so I get all the perks (seeing snow!) without any of the negatives (shoveling snow, driving in snow, basically any other interaction with snow).

 

[Kaeden]

"Cold" weather in California. Hah.

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LOL, yeah I knew I'd get shit for saying that but dammit I absolutely hate how cold it gets here... at least if we had snow I could enjoy that for a few days a year but no snowballs for me.

 

[Deleted member 8752]

I can't stand the cold. But I can easily do 100 degree days with humidity as long as I can find shade/use sunblock.

 

[StreetsAhead]

The heat is worse. Makes you sweat and you can only do so many things to cool yourself off, whereas you can just bundle up and wear layers in the cold.

 

[andrew]

That cold example in the OP is not really cold. Mid 20s fahrenheit isn't all that cold, and I am absolutely more comfortable in that than I am 110F.

Now between negative temps minus windchill with snow and ice, and a humid 100+...yeah I'd probably still take the cold. Bundle up inside and don't go out.

 

[Mórríoghain]

Hot.

You can always put on more clothes but you can't tear your skin off.

 

[Holmes]

"Cold" weather in California. Hah.

Actual cold weather with snow is the absolute worst. Every day is worse than the last.

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As someone who grew up in Northern Ontario and now lives in California without an AC, I can say the heat is definitely worse than the cold.

 

[aett]

I live in Northern California, outside Sacramento and we get a pretty decent amount of both throughout the year and with my friends and family we seem to be pretty split on what we think is worse. Personally I'll take the mid 20F's over the 110F's any day of the week, absolutely hate sweating and being sticky, etc. Luckily we don't get an insane amount of either... just enough to temporarily wish we had the other. Haha.

So what does Era find to be worse?

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Hey, I live just outside Sacramento, too. Anyway, with this region's weather, I prefer cold. You can always add layers, but if it snowed here, that'd be a different story.

 

[SirMossyBloke]

Cold.

I'd rather be uncomfortable than in pain. Especially when it's windy.

 

[Mirage]

I've lived in hot and cold places and I would rather deal with cold. Obviously the snow part sucks but just temperature wise.

 

[random88]

Cold by far. I can stand high temperatures, but I start hating life even when it's a little bit cold.

 

[Ravelle]

I live in the Netherlands, it's cold and wet 80% of the time. Cold lasts Forever but nice warm weather usually comes and goes in two weeks.

It's finally a hot summer week and I love it, being outside, going out for walks all day and sitting in the backyard reading is what I longed for.

 

[The Lord of Cereal]

I live in the armpit of California where in the summer it's very consistently in the 110's, and lemme just say, I fucking hate going outside in the summer for that very reason.

Plus, in the cold you can bundle up, put more layers on and wear nice shoes, can't exactly do that in the summer with the heat

 

[Vic Damone Jr.]

Hot weather is just indefensibly worse. The only way to fight it(consistently) is good air conditioning, where as with cold you could utilize layers, blankets, various heat sources, etc. And this is coming from someone whose house gets cold as fuck in the winter.

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This. This is well put but I like my explanation, when it's hot once you get naked you ain't getting any cooler but when it's cold you can bundle up lol

 

[br0ken_shad0w]

Hot weather you could at least adapt without an AC.
Cold weather (and I mean truly cold) is miserable without a heater.

 

[crienne]

You can always put on more clothes to combat the cold, but can only take off so many for the heat. Gimme cold every day.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

There's no way to separate cold weather from snow/ice, which means:

• Shovelling
• Myriad water system issues
• Sliding on roads/walks
• Needing specialised clothing to just be outside
• Dark days

Even ignoring all that, even the hottest weather in my region has been survivable in my experience. The equal yet opposite severe weather could make being outside a literal frostbite risk. I'm typically never experiencing anything north of 40C/100F, so I don't have to take as much precaution just to be outside as I do for the cold.

Hot weather you could at least adapt without an AC.
Cold weather (and I mean truly cold) is miserable without a heater.

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That's how I see it. At the very least, it being near my internal body temperature outside alone won't kill me, but freezing temps will. That said, I don't reach the hot equivalent of -40, which makes simply getting from one location to another a truly harrowing experience

 

[Crashman]

The results might not be so one sided if this was asked in 6 months...or they might be in the other direction. With that in mind, and it being pleasantly cool where I am now, I dislike the heat way more than the cold.

 

[astro]

Hot, but then I have never truly experienced incredible cold so I don't really have a marker for it.

 

[Cosmo Kramer]

Well, it is a fact that people tend to be less productive in hot regions, you don't have to go to the extreme either, hot is always worse than cold and also way more expensive to combat. I live in a pretty hot state and even when air conditioner everywhere sometimes i just don't want to leave my house

 

[Angie]

Cold weather is how I imagine that hell must be.

I can not stand it

 

[Cheesebu]

Hot is way worse for me. There is no way to sidestep it like you can with cold. Last night I fell asleep on the coach and when I woke up my entire back and neck were drenched. I had to create a wind tunnel into my bedroom to sleep haha. Cooler+fan outside the door+ceiling fan.

On the other hand, it makes for a good reason to flee my home and go to the beach where it's generally 10-15 degrees cooler and with a breeze to boot.

 

[mhayes86]

If I have heating and don't have to shovel a lot of snow, I'll take cooler weather. Summer heat and humidity in the mid-Atlantic US is miserable. Autumn weather here is pretty nice, though!

 

[Kaeden]

This. This is well put but I like my explanation, when it's hot once you get naked you ain't getting any cooler but when it's cold you can bundle up lol

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Yeah and I love being able to make things like hot chocolate, sit in front of a fire, all things which make the experience more tolerable. But the physical feeling of sweating and being sticky versus shivering and feeling the cold is harder for me to isolate one being worse over the other.

 

[Gpsych]

Hot is the fucking worst. I moved from South Texas to Northern Colorado trying to escape hot weather: it's going to be 100+ in Ft. Collins today. It's terribad. Climate change is just going to make it more common too.

I have this giant picture window in my master bedroom that faces west: in the afternoon it turns the room into the 4th plane of Hell.

 

[Wyman Manderly]

You don't have to scrape hot off your car

 

[Thordinson]

Hot weather you could at least adapt without an AC.
Cold weather (and I mean truly cold) is miserable without a heater.

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I spent several humid summers in Texas without an AC. You don't adapt to it. You just don't go home until night.

 

[FelRes]

I prefer hot weather over cold weather. But I prefer REALLY cold weather over REALLY hot weather.

 

[Maximum Spider]

It should also be noted that unhoused individuals often times don't have the means to just throw on extra layers when it gets cold out. Hypothermia can set in at temptures that most people wouldn't expect. Mix that with wet weather and things get really dangerous.

That's not to say that oppressive heat isn't deadly but I think people often forget how bad the winter months can be for unhoused people.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

If I have heating and don't have to shovel a lot of snow, I'll take cooler weather. Summer heat and humidity in the mid-Atlantic US is miserable. Autumn weather here is pretty nice, though!

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The thread's about "really hot" or "really cold" weather though. It's asking between one weather that's "just too hot/cold."

It should also be noted that unhoused individuals often times don't have the means to just throw on extra layers when it gets cold out. Hypothermia can set in at temptures that most people wouldn't expect. Mix that with wet weather and things get really dangerous.

That's not to say that oppressive heat isn't deadly but I think people often forget how bad the winter months can be for unhoused people.

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This is worth considering as well.

 

[Africanus II]

A Midatlantic humid summer day will have you wondering why you don't have gills

Cold as many have said (although medical conditions aside, anemia turns it into a whole different ball game, and also assuming you have heating because folks can and do freeze) is much easier to manage.

However, since the Pandemic I've really come around on the mental health side, as this winter was probably one of the worst ones I've ever been through with seasonal depression. I might be dying of heat but at least it's green and the sun is out.

 

[Kaeden]

You don't have to scrape hot off your car

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I can't imagine living where I had to deal with snow like many do. I'm like the laziest person with stuff like that but I like to think it would just be 'routine' if I had to do it that often. On the rare occasion during the winter if my windows are all iced up when I get up early in the morning, it's the absolute worst... and that's really a non-issue for many.

 

[Deleted member 31923]

Hot weather sucks. I can live with cold weather. I've lived in Ohio most of my life and am used to it.