-9.4°C, -15°C, and 1.7°C and 7.2°C, for those not using imperial units. Or rounded to the nearest fifth, -10°C, -15°C, 0°C, 5°C.
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
31 points (76.3% liked)
Showerthoughts
40428 readers
714 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Thank you friend. Something something multiply/divide by 1.8 add/subtract 32. Haven't thought about that equation in years.
I just use this site (a bit of a slurry name, but it does its job)
Every license test I've had to take for my career (stationary engineering) I've had to do the conversions on paper so it just brought back evil memories of that time lol.
That's because human perception exists on a logarithmic scale! It's called the Weber-Fechner law, and it was one of the first studied psychological phenomena, before psychology as a field was even defined.
Interestingly, our sense of the "bigness" of numbers is also logarithmic. This is why there have to be explicit explanations of the massive difference between a million and a billion - our brains instinctively and erroneously think "eh, it's like double."
~edit I can't type~
"What's the difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars? About a billion dollars."
It's .1% of a billion, that is a rounding error
In normal grades, 10 degrees in the autumn means winter is almost upon us, but 10 degrees at spring is t-shirt weather. And 20 degrees through the night means it's impossible to sleep because you're drowning in sweat. Probably very Norwegian issues, though.
Man I wish it eas 20°C at night where I am
I never wish for that, but seeing a positive number wouldn't hurt these days.
I highly disagree. 5 and touching a metal doorhandle ungloved is painful. 15 degrees is relatively safe if your not doing something stupid but 5 you have to be bundled up well. My bet is it feels the same to you because you bundle up well when going out into 5. Also the wind chill gets much worse the lower you go. I think also there is a big effect as you approach freezing. I tend to hate 35 degree weather vs 25 because of rain vs snow. 35 degree rain is some of the worst weather to me because you can't simply bundle up for it.
As a Swede I can attest to that the biggest difference is when approaching 0°C or around 0°. It’s due to the air humidity. There’s still a bit humidity in the air around 0° but when that’s gone you don’t feel too big of a difference after that.
From what I remember from physics course, transitioning between solid/liquid/gas states requires extra energy to be absorbed or released that isn't contributing to change in temperature. So change from -1°C ice to +1°C water is actually taking more energy than from 10°C to 12°C, despite being the same difference in temperature.
Also, we perceive temperature not in terms of these absolute values anyway, but rather how quickly it transfers heat to or from our body. That's why humidity affects it, as moist air absorbs heat faster than dry (air being a pretty good heat insulator in general).
Once it’s below -5 it’s just cold. The range 10° above that has the possibility of being a damp cold and that sucks the life out of you
Yeah, -15 to -5°C is nice. But the range of -5 to +5°C... that isn't fun..
I can always tell when it's about 0 because I can feel a frosty tingle when I breathe in through my nose.
Hard to describe, but I'm sure you know what I mean.
As a Mainer anything under like 5° C feels the same to me. The only difference is how much your snot freezes.
I don't know what 15 degrees Fahrenheit feels like. Or 5. Or 35. Or 45.
Trust I'm right then friend.
Never trust an American.
💋
15 f is pretty chilly. 35 f is cold if it was warm yesterday, but warm if it was cold yesterday, 45 is the same. 5 f is really cold if it's humid or windy, but tolerable otherwise.
-15f is where your teeth start to hurt if you open your mouth outside.
If we convert to civilized units, -15f is -26c. Ah, so not that cold at all lol
That's because you're using the silly farenheit scale, which was designed for brine. You should use celcius, which is designed for humans.
Celsius was designed for water. A human scale would be like 100 = maximum temperature human is expected to be alive and 0 = minimum temperature human is expected to be alive (and 50 normal human temperature).
Humans are mostly water though.
And your scale makes even less sense because you are ignoring time and air moisture (for the maximum temperature). You would probably die very quickly in a 120°C hot sauna if it had 100% moisture.
Same with the cold: I'd not survive much longer than a minute in -50°C without clothes but with adequate protection several hours seems possible.
minimum and maximum body temperature (we are measuring humans, not the environment)
But the lowest body temp ever survived was 56.7F.
Fahrenheit is more of a scale of how the temperature feels to a human.
Ah, that makes a bit more sense.
Maximum body temperature should be pretty obvious - at least with one or two degrees (Celsius) of wiggle room.
Though, with minimum body temperature, do you mean minimum while conscious or minimum survivable? Because there have been cases where people were successfully resuscitated after being submerged in freezing water for a very long time:
An 8-year-old boy fell through pond ice and was submerged for ≥147 minutes. Nadir peripheral body temperature was 7 °C (45 °F). After rewarming with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, prolonged hospitalization, and neurorehabilitation, the child recovered.
At 6-month follow-up, he was giving short commands, standing without support, riding a tricycle, eating soft foods, and relearning simple tasks.
Humans in different areas are used to and can survive different temperatures. There's this buddhist guy who goes out in the snow naked and meditates to produce body heat.
But all humans are made of water, and can relate its chemical processes to their comfort and survival.
I should have specified minimum and maximum body temperature. Doesn't matter where you are from, if your body temperature is like 15ºC or 45ºC you will hardly survive, and majority will die way before that.
So 0H is like 35C and 100H is 40C? That kinda sucks.
But after experiencing 15 or 5 for a few weeks 35 feels almost like spring. A few weeks ago I was half frozen at 35 with 2 jackets on, yesterday it was in the mid-30s and I took off my one jacket and was just in short sleeves because I was starting to get sweaty.
Your body adjusts to temperature changes.
When you experience the first cold day, your body panics and acts like you're going to freeze to death. After a few days pass and you don't freeze to death, your body realizes it overreacted and adjusts accordingly.
It's just a Nervous Nellie.
Absolutely true.
According to radio weather reports in Canada -5° usually "feels like" about -20 according to the elaborate calculations of the wind chill experts, so that checks out.
Yeah wind chill is a whole separate can of shitty worms.
I feel it the other way 'round. I'll wear the same jacket beyween 35 to 45°F, and add some layers for 15°F. But for 5°F, I'll switch to the parka.