COLD WEATHER

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 16, 19 January 1940, Page 6

COLD WEATHER

EUROPE'S HARD DAYS

WHAT THE FIGURES MEAN

BEYOND IMAGINATION

The intense cold which is at present holding Northern Europe and Asia in its icy grip is not without precedent, but from all accounts it seems to be the coldest spell for nearly a century. New Zealanders who have experienced no other climate besides their own salubrious one can have no idea as to what this intense cold means. It really conveys but little to them to read that temperatures are 50 degrees or more below freezing point, and it is not easy to make comparisons which will adequately convey to them the intensity of such cold. Unfortunately no convenient scale has as yet been devised by which the degree of cold can be judged by its effects without recourse- to figures. The RossiEorel scale estimates fairly conveniently the degree of the intensity of earthquakes by the amount of movement and damage done, and there is a similar scale for winds. But there is no such scale for cold, such as "ten degrees below freezing point, nose turns blue; twenty degrees below, breath freezes; forty degrees below, ears drop off." It may actually feel much colder at ten degrees below freezing point than it does a,t forty below—it all depends on atmospheric and other conditions. ■ The latest cables refer to over 70 degrees of frost in Moscoiw, to 45 degrees of frost in Estonia, and to similarly low temperatures in Germany and other parts of Europe. Most people know that freezing point on the Fahrenheit scale is 32 degrees, and each degree below that figure* is counted as a degree of frost. Zero is, of course, nought on the Fahrenheit scale and is equivalent to 32 degrees of frost. Fifty degrees of frost on the Fahrenheit . scale would btminus 18 degrees, 70 is minus 38 degrees, and- so on. Yesterday'l' cable which credited Estonia wiV" a tern" perature of' 82 degrees be^ow zero, or minus 82 degrees, was ot>7A°us ly an error. What it meant, and '#iis is confirmed by a Daventry broadcast,, was 82 degrees below freezing point, and this is equal to minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit. A temperature of minus 82 degrees would be too close to a world's record to be recorded in such a country as Estonia. The world's record low temperature is one of minus 90 degrees, and was recorded in Siberia, and it is in the northern part of Siberia and in the northern part of the American continent that the lowest temperatures are reached. COMPARISONS WITH N.Z. However, whatever the exact temperature recorded in Estonia has been, there is not the slightest doubt that it has been exceedingly cold. Such severe temperatures as those mentioned in the cables are only experienced where there are large land masses, in countries which, have what is called a "continental climate"—one of extremes in both heat and cold. Islands like New Zealand and, to a lesser extent; Great Britain (which has its climate influenced by the neighbouring land masses) do not experience such extremes of temperature. In some . parts of /Otago, at a' comparatively high altitude, ■temperatures have on occasions, fallen to round about zero—32 degrees of frost. The lowest temperature ever recorded at the Chateau, which is high up in the middle of the North Island, was 7.5 degrees Fahrenheit in July, 1937 (or 24.5 degrees of frost), and at Hanmer, in the South Island, 8.2 degrees Fahrenheit (23.8 degrees of frost). But ordinary' civilised places in JSTew Zealand, at altitudes not far removed from that of sea level, rarely have -as much as twenty degrees of frost. Then there is another big difference between New Zealand's cold and that of Europe. In the latter the cold temperatures persist throughout the day and for days on end, with the result that the ground becomes frozen to a considerable depth. Those who en-! deavoured to dig trenches on the battle front in Europe, in the exceptionally, severe winter of 1916 will recollect how poor, an instrument the ordinary army pick was to deal with the ground which was frozen as hard as concrete. In New Zealand it may freeze comparatively hard at night, but frosts do not persist in the same way as they do in Europe.* The European cold is also a jmuch damper and more penetrating cold than that experienced in New Zealand, and therefore much more unpleasant. How cold it is in Europe must therefore be left to the imagination of the New Zealander. The latter can have but the smallest conception of what it means to have thermometers recording 80 degrees of frost. However, such extreme low temperatures are more easily borne than correspondingly high ones. If the thermometer rose 80 degrees above freezing point instead of descending 80 degrees below it, it would reach a temperature of 112 degrees, which is that of ",a really hot bath. For very \w temperatures mercury thermometers are of no use as recording instruments, since mercury beg' is to freeze at about 40 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit). Alcohol has to be used in its place, as alcohol's freezing point is very much lower than any temperature recorded oh the earth's surface. POLAR TEMPERATURES. ~ Many people probably think that "the North and South Poles are the coldest places in the world. But this is far from the truth. Far lower temperatures than those experienced at either Pole have been recorded in Siberia and North America. Temperatures at the North Pole probably do not fall lower than minus 55 degrees. The lowest temperature yet recorded iAxthe Antarctic was minus 77 degrees. However, as this was taken near the edge of the Antarctic Continent it is reasonable to presume that'a lower figure would have been recorded further inland, if there had been someone there with a thermometer to take it.