Just how cold is Fairbanks cold? Part I: Cars

In our paper we put a graphic of the state of Alaska with the weather forecast for main cities (all 6 of them). For Anchorage, which is 6 hours south of us, the high was -1 and the low was -8 and the blurb said something like "Sunny and very cold with snow flurries in the evening."

For Fairbanks, the high was -30 and the low was -36 and the blurb said "Some sun and very cold with cold snap continuing through the week."

Let's break this down. The difference between -1 and -30 is 29 degrees. That's the difference between a nice 71 degree day and a hot 100 degree day. You notice how I use different adjectives: nice vs. hot. The Eskimos may have 40 different words for "snow," but apparently anything below 0 is just "very cold." 

Mark Zuckerberg has yet to create the facebook option where you can feel things through the internet, so I'm going to have to explain what -35 is, because I'm betting most of you haven't experienced it.



Fairbanks "very cold" is so cold that you have to plug your car in while you're at work, else your engine, oil and battery would freeze. At many work places, such as mine, they have these posts with outlets that you plug a freeze fancy extension cord into and the other end into a plug coming out the front of your car. They even light up so you know there's juice flowing. 

It's true. I'm cheating. These aren't my pics, but they're linked back to the original site. Don't go too judgmental on me, I'm living in very cold weather.

Now, some people have this sweet device called an auto start for their cars. The device is attached to your key chain and before you go outside you push the button for your car to start so it gets warm before you have to risk your life. It takes about 10-15 minutes, depending on how comfy cozy you want your car to be. Really fancy auto starts have sensors inside the car and if the inside temperature gets below -5, it automatically turns the car on to warm it back up.

I do not have an auto start. I did recently buy a car, and it would be awesome to have one, but getting an auto start installed is about a quarter of what I paid for the car, so it's just not worth it to me.

Because of this, when I get into my car at the end of the night, it is slightly cold inside. I recently bought these extreme gloves that are leather and down goose feather crazy insulated; in fact if I wear them inside for more than 2 minutes my hands start to sweat -- but it's so cold these gloves aren't cutting it because I can feel the cold radiating from the steering wheel. I don't grip the steering wheel very hard.

This concludes this section of "Just how cold is Fairbanks cold?" Stay tuned for more informative reasons on why I deserve lots more gifts this year.