Photo: Senni P_yry/EyeEm Australia, often lovingly called the sun-scorched land, is known for its warm climate. Our country is a haven for global expats looking for somewhere warmer to call home – at the end of June 2022, 1.1 million people born in the UK lived in Australia – and every autumn thousands of posts flood Instagram, boasting about wearing shorts in March and sleeveless in May. So why is a winter’s day Down Under insultingly cold? It’s also a kind of lip-tingling, bone-tingling coldness that makes it impossible to talk about anything else. “OMG, that’s right cold,” that’s how I start all my conversations now. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Countries known for their cold technically have much colder winters than we do. The average UK winter temperature is between two and seven degrees Celsius, but temperatures often drop to just below freezing. Meanwhile, winter temperatures in Canada range between -2 and -22 degrees Celsius, with the average minimum temperature in June last year being 10.0 degrees, yet it is not uncommon to hear Australians and tourists visiting during the winter months complaining about how uncomfortably cold here. The phenomenon is also circulating on TikTok, with users thinking that nowhere is colder than Australia, @alexandratuohey said: the coldest I’ve ever been was living in a shared house in Melbourne in July.” Another TikToker echoed this, saying: “It’s 6:30pm, 16 degrees Celsius and I’m absolutely freezing. I’m from Toronto. When I lived in Toronto, 16 degrees Celsius was like wearing a t-shirt and shorts and celebrating life. And now I can barely operate. And I’m wearing a North Face jacket, who am I pretending to be?” And they’re not wrong. After much of Australia woke up to the coldest morning of the year today, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) shared observations that Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Hobart experienced a “feeling” temperature between 3-6 degrees Celsius lower than the actual minimum temperature
Why does he seem cooler than him actually is?
Simply put, the wind is to blame. In an interview with the ABC, Ollie Jay, professor of heat and health at the University of Sydney, explained that the reason temperatures feel colder than they are is down to a process called convection — the transfer of heat energy from warmer areas to cooler areas. So, the stronger the winds, the faster the process. “When the temperature of the air is so much lower than the temperature of the outside of the body, the temperature difference between you and the air is quite large, which means that you naturally lose a lot of heat through this process called convection,” Jay explained. “The multiplier of that is actually the wind.” It makes sense, then, when you consider that our celebrated island country is the target of winds (westerly, southerly, lots of them) that a winter’s day Down Under seems like a never-ending ice bath. Even for those of us who grew up shivering from the surprisingly cold Australian winters, June comes around every year to surprise us again. As we near the winter solstice and the coldest month of the year, we suggest you invest in a warm coat, update your skin care routine and enter the era of hibernation. Quick, friends.Want more? Get the best stories from Refinery29 Australia delivered to your inbox every week. Apply here!
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education