Minus ten degrees and 71 starters

[EddieH]

Moravian held its final Saturday league event of the year and had one of the biggest fields despite many people being snowed in and unable to make it, and temperatures below minus 10 degrees. Great event.

I know that when the temperature is below a certain figure international ski-O events are cancelled. Does anyone know what that threshhold is? And is this the UK's coldest day event to date, (I am pretty sure the Deeside Night league has run in lower)?

[Gross]

used to be 18 below.... think it's now 20 below.........

[Gross]

From IOF Rules:

35.3 If the temperature in a major portion of the course is minus 20° C or below, the
competition shall be delayed or cancelled. Such decision is to be made jointly by the
organiser and the IOF Event Adviser.

[Big Jon]

I've heard stories of thermometers being set on warm car bonnets etc to make sure the temp is not so low the race has to be cancelled....

[Gross]

he temp is not so low the race has to be cancelled....

I've seen stories of other things being warmed on car bonnets so as life isn't cancelled

[Domhnull Mor]

I did a ski race here in Sweden a few years back where the start was beside a river in the bottom of a deep gully. The temperature when I got up that morning had been -36oC but by the time we got to the start it was still only -32oC. However, the official race temperature was measured at a small shed, deep in the forest, at the highest point on the course where it was only -15oC. Mind you, they did shorten the course from 42 to 32km because it was "a bit chilly".

For most ski-o races here, the temperature limits are set at -17oC for juniors and -20oC for seniors but I've seen a lot of interesting ways to measure it so that the race can continue. Noone wants to call a race off unless they really have to (though I have had to make the decision myself once).

[EddieH]

Experience from my childhood says that minus 12 in Oslo feels about equivalent to zero in Southern Britain because the climate is so much drier. The Russians in Oslo used to say that minus ten there felt like about minus thirty back home.

So I guess up at the top of the Baltic there minus twenty is not sooo bad.

[AndyO]

...says baby Polar Bear to mummy Polar Bear

am I really a Polar Bear, Mummy?

of course you are, son

I'm not a Black Bear, or a Grizzly Bear, but a real, proper Polar Bear?

no, son, you are a real, proper Polar Bear, why do you ask?

because I'm [nope]in' freezing!

-20oC does it for me!

[Gross]

Coldest I've been out in is 32 below.... that is COLD... even if you are properly dressed for it

[blairtrewin]

In undulating terrain over snow cover with light or calm winds, ridge/valley temperature differences could easily be 10 degrees or more even with elevation difference of 50 metres or less.

Enclosed depressions can get especially cold - saw something at the end of November about La Brevine in Switzerland (very close to this year's WMOC final area - sinkhole country) getting down to -31.4, on a night when La Chaux-de-Fonds (which has a cold reputation in its own right) was -19 and Geneva -7.

[graeme]

It hit -34 in Kiruna where I was teaching last year. They suggested I run on the river, which was fun, but a bit unnerving. At least, until I got passed by an articulated lorry

[cbg]

FIS (and Biathlon) rules state not below -20 air temperature "at the coldest part of the site". Wind chill is taken into account separately. The air temperature directly impacts the temperature of the masses of air that is dragged into vulnerable lungs ... whilst wind chill affects the extremities of the body, which need various lvels of protection.