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Comment by rr808 | Hacker News Reader

Most of Norway like Oslo isn't really arctic cold though. Big continental cities away from the coast are much more frigid.

eg Oslo this January was above freezing every day, and only below freezing a few nights. https://www.accuweather.com/en/no/oslo/254946/january-weathe.... Compare that to Chicago https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/chicago/60608/january-weat...

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> Most of Norway like Oslo isn't really arctic cold though

Oslo is colder than like 90% of the inhabited parts of the planet...it's probably fine to use it as an example when talking about cold weather performance of EVs

Average temperature in Oslo is colder than 90% of the planet - but average winter temperature in Oslo is a fairly normal winter temperature for nearly half the planet, especially for the more affluent parts of it. The hottest large city on Earth - Ahvaz, Iran - with a record high of 54C, still recorded a record low of -7C

It really isn't that cold https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-Tem...

When comparing Norway's mean average temperature to the rest of the world, it is clear that it is significantly cooler.

[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/hottest-c...

Yeah much of Norway is very cold, esp in the arctic circle - however very few people live there. In the South it isn't so cold.

This is like saying Canada is cold because Yellowknife, when in reality 90% of the population lives within 100 miles of the US border. Like yeah, we can still get a decently cold winter in southern Ontario, but it's not remotely comparable to the actual arctic, or even places like Saskatoon and Edmonton.

               Average Low (°C)          || Record Low (°C)
             | Dec  | Jan  | Feb  | Mar  || Dec   | Jan   | Feb   | Mar
    Oslo     | -3.9 | -4.7 | -4.7 | -2.1 || -19.7 | -20.5 | -20.7 | -16.9
    Toronto  | -3.1 | -6.7 | -5.6 | -1.9 || -30.0 | -32.8 | -31.7 | -26.7

The winter in Oslo starts earlier and lasts longer... but isn't as extreme as Toronto's winter.

The record low for Feb in Oslo (1991 - 2020 data) is -5.3°F. That's an average winter night for me. https://www.aos.wisc.edu/~sco/clim-history/stations/msn/msn-...

Another way of looking at this... heating degree days.

https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weatherall-print.php3?s=... vs https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weatherall-print.php3?s=...

Oslo has 6286.8 heating degree days. Toronto, Ontario has 7342.8.

Toronto is substantially colder than Oslo (edit...) when it comes to the extremes of weather.

(edit: correction) - Oslo's is https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weatherall.php3?s=88410&...

which has the heating degree days as 7787.8 which is now comparable to Toronto.

Oslo is on the ocean. While the arctic ocean is cold, it's still water. If the air temperature drops below the temperature of the water, the ocean will release heat and warm up the air.

It is very difficult to get it colder than the water. Note also that Oslo is on a warm current - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Corrient... - the Norwegian current is a continuation of the Gulf Stream (compare the California current which is a cold one)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo

> Oslo has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification: Dfb)[48] or, if the original Köppen winter threshold −3 °C (27 °F) is used, an oceanic climate (Cfb) in the 1991–2020 base period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_climate

> Examples of oceanic climates are found in Glasgow, London, Bergen, Amsterdam, Dublin, Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, Bilbao, Oviedo, Biarritz, A Coruña, Bayonne, Zürich, Copenhagen, Prague, Skagen, and Paris. With decreasing distance to the Mediterranean Sea, the oceanic climate of northwest Europe gradually changes to the subtropical dry-summer or Mediterranean climate of southern Europe

> The oceanic climate exists in an arc spreading across the north-western coast of North America from the Alaskan panhandle to northern California, in general the coastal areas of the Pacific Northwest. It includes the western parts of Washington and Oregon, the Alaskan panhandle, western portions of British Columbia, and north-western California.

Compare this to the continental climates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis#Climate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulder,_Colorado#Climate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis#Climate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago#Climate (has the population of 1/2 of all of Norway)

With no large bodies of open water, the air temperature is not moderated by the release of heat from the water and can go further to extremes on both ends.

To put some numbers to this:

Oslo, Norway:

Average low, coldest month: -5.3 C

Record low, all time: -26 C

versus

Indianapolis, Indiana, United States:

Average low, coldest month: -6.2 C

Record low, all time: -33 C

Never would have guessed this. Thanks

Why did you choose Indianapolis for the comparison?

Why not Minneapolis, or Cheyenne, or some other North American city that is also away from the coasts? Why not Regina?

I think part of the problem is that because EVs are still new, people are going to expect or demand reliability. It's only better if it's better in every way.

When I worked in a cold city, you would occasionally hear people say, "Sorry I'm late for work, boss. Car wouldn't start, and I had to get a jump."

Because it's new, saying, "Sorry I'm late for work, boss. It's cold, so my car had less range and I had to stop at the Slurp-n-Burp to recharge" isn't going to be met with the same level of sympathy.

Indianapolis is a decently large city, and it's not that far north nor in an obviously cold mountainous region. Most people wouldn't recognize it as exceptionally cold for the US. It's also south of several large Midwestern cities. So, it was a good way to show that a large fraction of the US (and of course Canada) gets colder than Oslo.

For reference: Indianapolis is about 40 degrees north of the equator, Oslo about 60, so it’s over 2,000 km more closer to the equator. Indianapolis is at about the latitude of Madrid.

The Gulf Stream really works.

Not only the Gulf Stream, but also the polar jet stream, which frequently dips down into the American midwest in winter, making the temperature in Indianapolis about as cold as it is much further north in Canada. Sometimes even colder.

e.g. https://cms.accuweather.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/stati...

If they had used Minneapolis or Cheyenne, someone else would have posted why did you choose Minneapolis or Cheyenne.

> Average low, coldest month: -5.3 C

Crazy thing is this January there looks to be only one night where it went below zero.

I've been wondering how the EV adoption will play out in Canada. For example, the city I live in with a population of 162k had a record all time low of -48.3 C, and average lows in January of −17.9C, and 4 of months of the year have average lows below -10C.

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