Baby, it's cold outside...a newish* theory about the perception of weather

*By "newish" I mean not new or original at all.

The longer I live in Virginia, the more I whine about cold. Now, certainly, it was refreshingly wonderful to visit places up North, where the weather is far more cold than here. And upon visiting these places this year, I believe that I am on the brink of a major discovery of something Janna and I have known for years--winter is actually colder for Southerners than Northerners.

Here are my groundbreaking findings--

Due to classical conditioning, Southerners have a general perception of their environment as warm and inviting, and therefore see the seasonal cooling as a nuisance. Therefore, they fail psychologically to take appropriate measures to keep themselves warm. Northerners, on the other hand, perceive their general environment as being cold and hostile, therefore, they have a tendency to overprepare for cold weather.

Let me cite my anecdotal evidence.

• In Virginia, there are only three months out of the year in which it is quite likely to freeze overnight, whereas, in Michigan, there are probably six months in which this true.


• Therefore, in Virginia, people are less likely to allocate their resources for tools to deal with the cold, i.e.


• Really, no one owns or at least wears a winter coat.


• People do not regularly wear gloves or hats when they go out.


• Buildings do not have the infrastructure for winter.


• Public spaces rarely have a place to hang a winter coat (i.e. churches, restaurants, etc...)


• Cheaper, less efficacious heating methods are popular (i.e. heat pumps, wood stoves, etc...)


• People rarely have a garage, let alone one that is attached to their house or heated.


• In the north, people are more willing to wear warm clothes for short periods of outside activity.


• People in the south expect to be able to continue outdoors activities throughout winter months.

It is interesting to note that these opposing attitudes lead to a similar style of reporting. In Chicago, where wintertime blizzards are a matter of course, television news often presents news of such in a sensationalistic manner. However, this is usually presented from the attitude of, "Hey, look, I told you Mother Nature has been trying to kill us all this time. I mean just look at how much she hates us." Whereas, in Charlottesville, television news also sensationalizes snow storms, but the attitude of the presenters is more like, "Hey, this is unfair! We live in the South. How dare it snow upon us!"


Anyways, I know that when I visited Ithaca and Saint Paul, I cam prepared with hats, gloves, layers, and flanel garments. The temperatures, especially in Saint Paul, where no more cold then than they are now in Charlottesville. However, I just walked across UVa's campus to work on rendering my teaching video, Oy! and I was not even wearing a coat. Therefore, leaving me feeling much more cold than I would have felt in the same or worse weather up North.