I know: weather talk is boring. But I just moved to North Dakota a few months ago and am simply amazed. Before I moved, my research showed that temps up here are 10 degrees colder than in SE Wyoming, where I lived previously. Huh? It is 40 degrees there and this morning the temp here was minus 50 degrees with the wind chill (thermometer is now minus 20). I calculate the difference as 90 degrees. Incredible math. Right? If you want to shake up your life and have some new adventures, move to ND in winter.
If I did not have an indoor/outdoor thermometer, I would not believe the air is cold enough to cause frost bite in a matter of minutes. Minus 50–according to my limited experience running to the van or waiting at the door for Tango who has learned to pee in only several seconds–does not feel much colder than minus 20 or even zero degrees. Cold is cold. I pile on several layers at zero degrees but do not need another layer at minus 20 or colder. Weird math.
Still, the weather service mentions in the wind chill alerts the effects of ultra low temps on the skin: frost bite to exposed skin in a matter or minutes and will lead to hypothermia if precautions are not taken. I believe them. I plan to stay indoors today and work on the sermon and end of the year paperwork and not test their warnings.
Toasty warm inside, I test my other senses against the cold. The landscape does not look cold. That only happens when the foggy air freezes on the trees. Besides, the clear, warm sun is rising, suggesting the day might become balmy.
Sounds of cold? Yes, the house makes some odd noises–not exactly rattling, like the ancient Yellow House in WY, which chattered nervously in the wind. The sound in this 1970s home is more like a popping. A snapping. Crisp pop. Sharp snap. I recently reread Dakota, by Kathleen Norris, and she wrote something about sound and cold. She lived in Lemmon, SD, which is near Wishek. Now, she lives in Hawaii. Hmmm. Thinking maybe Bora Bora would be nice.
I can sense the cold through touch, too. Every surface on my furniture and the countertops are cool, even with the heater running nonstop. I touch the windows just now and discover they are–of course–the coldest part of the house, colder even than the laundry room, which is isolated behind a closed pocket door. The windows are super, double-pane, and I worry about folks living in less adequate housing. When Tango returns after his few seconds outdoors, his fur is already icy cold. The inside air? Warmish, but still chilly. Nothing a fleece throw won’t cure.
The smell of cold is what I notice most. Normally I don’t smell much, thanks to crummy sinuses, but I can smell minus 20 or minus 50. The smell is not a fragrance or odor I could name, like garlic or cinnamon. Rather, the cold air has the smell of clean ice, the smell of a frozen earth that is void of other smells. Icy cold. Nothing else. Odor molecules, like wood smoke, must freeze up tight and snuggle in the corner.
I decide this is not my imagination and do some research using the search terms, smell, cold air. I read this at Discovery.com:
“Pine needles. Wood smoke. Snow. These are the smells of winter, and for people who live with distinct seasons, wintry weather brings its own set of olfactory experiences.
But why does the cold of winter smell different from the heat of summer?
One reason is that odor molecules move much more slowly as the air temperature drops, said Pamela Dalton, an olfactory scientist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. That means that there are simply fewer smells to smell on a cold, crisp day than there are on a hot and humid one.
It’s the same reason why hot soup smells more than cold soup does and why the garbage truck leaves behind the strongest odors on steamy summer days.
What’s more, our noses don’t work quite as well when the ambient air is cold, Dalton said. In experiments that require biopsies of olfactory receptors that lie deep inside the nose, researchers at Monell have discovered that the receptors “bury themselves a little more deeply in the nose in winter,” she said, possibly as a protective response against cold, dry air.
“We’re not as sensitive to odors in winter,” she added. “And odors aren’t as available to be smelled.”
Cold air also stimulates the irritant-sensitive trigeminal nerve, said Alan Hirsch, a neurologist and psychiatrist in Chicago. The trigeminal nerve is what makes you cry when you chop an onion and delivers a hit of spiciness when you inhale a whiff of strong mint.
To cope with the smell deprivation of winter, many people compensate by burning more scented candles, cooking more aromatic stews and baking more cookies. That creates a greater contrast between the indoor and outdoor environments.
“You probably have an uptick of indoor scents in the winter,” Dalton said. “Homes are closed up, windows are closed. We concentrate the smells of cooking and living.”
So, yes, the smells of minus fifty are different, or absent as the above suggests. The writers’ imagination and science collide once again. So what is a home bound woman living through her first North Dakota winter to do? A pot of spicy curried lentils is on today’s menu.
