How Cold Is It?

The dog pee on the sidewalk outside my subway station was a frozen yellow puddle. That's how cold it is.

One of the most common questions I get asked, both from friends in Ohio and in New York, is how the weather in the two states compare. Everyone seems to think the other place is colder. In reality, the temperatures are almost identical. The mercury's a little lower in Ohio this week, but the wind is so frigid here that it feels much colder than it is.

In any case, cold weather means more here than it does in Ohio, where I popped into my attached garage and propelled myself to work in a nice and toasty car. In Ohio I would never think about walking even a block in the snow, sleet or freezing rain. Now I have to walk six blocks before I even get to work. That's pleasant in the spring, but not so much in driving rain or biting wind. Fashion be damned; in the worst of it I'll pull my wool hat down over my forehead until it's nearly touching my eyes.

It's actually a lot like being at Ohio State again, where I regularly had 10-minute walks to class. My scarves had been in hiatus since I graduated. Now I wear one every day.