Things to Do When It's Really Cold Outside: A Wisconsin Polar Vortex Video

When the polar vortex dropped Arctic air over the Upper Midwest in January 2014, most of Wisconsin stayed indoors. Schools closed, cars refused to start and the thermometer sat far below zero. Henry Reich, a YouTube creator from Hayward in the snowy north of the state, went outside with a camera instead and turned the cold into a short, beautifully shot comedy about what to do when it is really cold outside.

The Wisconsin cold-weather video

The clip, uploaded to YouTube by reichhen, plays like a deadpan list of outdoor "activities" for a day far below freezing. The Christian Post, which shared it on 7 January 2014, described it as six outdoor activities from a Wisconsin-based YouTube user, called the first one something it could not honestly recommend, and said the rest looked like good fun. Perfect Duluth Day credited the video to Henry Reich of Hayward.

The joke works because everyone in the northern United States knew the backdrop that week. Snow lies deep all around, and the man in the frame throws his arms up as if the cold were something to celebrate. The temperature attached to the clip when we first shared it was −17°C, which is about 1°F.

The polar vortex of January 2014

The cold had a clear cause. Early in January 2014 a sudden warming high in the stratosphere disrupted the polar vortex, the ring of strong winds that normally keeps the coldest air locked over the Arctic. A lobe of that air swung south into Canada and the United States, and "polar vortex" became a household phrase almost overnight.

The numbers from those first days are still quoted in the Midwest:

• Green Bay, Wisconsin fell to −18°F (−28°C) on 5 January, a record for the date.
• Babbitt, Minnesota reached −37°F (−38°C) on 6 January, the coldest reading in the country.
• Chicago O'Hare hit −16°F (−27°C) on 6 January, beating a daily record set in 1884.
• Schools across most of Wisconsin closed on 6 and 7 January, and again on 27 and 28 January when a second wave arrived.

The cold wave lasted into March. Chicago's December-to-March period ended as the coldest on record there, and the nickname #Chiberia, picked up by the National Weather Service and local media, stuck.

Hayward and winter in northern Wisconsin

Hayward, the seat of Sawyer County, is a small city of about 2,500 people surrounded by lakes and forest, and it takes winter seriously. Every February it hosts the finish of the American Birkebeiner, a 50 km cross-country ski race from Cable to Hayward. Ski Classics calls it North America's largest cross-country ski race, and roughly 40,000 skiers and spectators gather in the Cable and Hayward area for race weekend.

In a place like that, a few days around 0°F are part of normal life. The polar vortex was different because the cold reached so far south, into cities that rarely see it.

What happens outdoors at −17°C and below

The same cold snap produced a wave of viral science videos. National Geographic explained three of them:

• Boiling water turns to snow. Thrown into very cold air, hot water breaks into tiny droplets that partly evaporate. The frigid air cannot hold that vapour, so it condenses and freezes into ice crystals that drift down like snow.
• Ice fog. Over open water such as Lake Michigan, vapour rising from the relatively warm lake freezes almost at once into a frozen cloud.
• Frozen soap bubbles. The thin film of water freezes before the bubble can pop, so it keeps its shape, and in very low temperatures it can crack into a crystalline shell.

Dressing for extreme cold

Wind makes cold far more dangerous. The National Weather Service notes that exposed skin can freeze in 30 minutes at a wind chill of −19°F (−28°C), and the risk climbs quickly beyond that. Dress in loose, dry layers, cover the head, face and hands, and change out of wet clothing at once.

Know the warning signs. The CDC lists frostbite as white or greyish-yellow patches of skin, skin that feels hard or waxy, and numbness. Hypothermia shows up as shivering, exhaustion, confusion, fumbling hands, memory loss, slurred speech and drowsiness. Enjoy the comedy from a warm room, and keep your own trips outside short on days like these.

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