Please, let me know winter life hacks/survival tips/things a Texan would not know about cold weather.
The first thing to keep in mind is that winter weather is quite variable. Where I live (MA), the temperature (in Fahrenheit) in the winter ranges from around −10 to +50. It’s good to have ways to keep yourself warm at various points in that range.
Going down human anatomy, I would recommend:
Head
A warm hat that covers your ears
If you are into outdoor exercise, a headband to keep your ears warm; they can get very cold even if you’re producing enough heat to keep the rest of your body warm
Sunglasses; snow can cause a lot of glare. Make sure they have full UV protection (most do).
Optional: scarf and/or ski mask; on the very cold days, especially if it’s also windy, it can be helpful to keep your face covered.
Chapstick; the air is pretty dry in the winter.
Torso:
A moderately warm jacket and a very warm jacket, for varying temperatures; I use a modular ski jacket, which has an outer shell and an inner lining. The lining can be easily detached and used as a stand-alone jacket on less cold days.
Sweater: depending on the temperature at work, you may feel you need one. Also, at home, wearing a sweater is a lot cheaper than cranking the heat up high.
Hands:
Get a good pair of gloves. I cannot emphasize this enough. Preferably get gloves with some grip to them, to make things like opening doors easier.
Moisturizing lotion; as mentioned before, winter air is very dry.
Legs:
Most people don’t really do much differently here.
Optional: Long underwear can be helpful, depending on how easily you get cold.
If you will be getting exercise outdoors and are male, wear an extra pair of underwear, ideally not very breathable. Why is left as an exercise for the reader.
Feet:
Insulated boots are very useful, though not absolutely necessary. In urban areas, there are often a lot of puddles from melting snow, so make sure they’re very waterproof, too.
In a less urban area or on a large college campus where you may have to trudge through deep-ish snow, I would also recommend gators to keep the snow from getting inside your shoes.
Snowshoes and spikes are unnecessary.
Wool socks are helpful, depending on how easily you get cold.
Other things:
I find a sun lamp helpful; YMMV.
People spend more time indoors with less ventilation, so diseases spread more easily. Take precautions as appropriate.
Somebody is welcome to tell me I’m irrational, but my experience (which doesn’t seem to be unique) is that chapstick and lip balm can be really really habit forming—there is something about putting chapstick on that makes always using chapstick a priority—when I stopped using chapstick my lips were drying than before I started. Here are a few links. Note the big difference betwen chapstick, lip balm, and medicated lip balm though. It could easily have been all in my head (which doesn’t make it not real sadly). Not surprisingly, there isn’t some conspiracy to add irritants to them or anything, it may just be habit forming in the good old fashioned way.
http://www.lipbalmanonymous.com/is-lip-balm-addictive/http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Dermatology/Is-chapstick-really-addictive/show/239683http://www.snopes.com/business/secret/carmex.asp
I’m not sure how common this is but I spent a couple of long weekends (the early Arisias) in a hotel somewhere outside Boston during winter, and the air was so dry that it took my sinuses years to recover. Sleeping with a humidifier might be a good idea.
The first thing to keep in mind is that winter weather is quite variable. Where I live (MA), the temperature (in Fahrenheit) in the winter ranges from around −10 to +50. It’s good to have ways to keep yourself warm at various points in that range.
Going down human anatomy, I would recommend:
Head
A warm hat that covers your ears
If you are into outdoor exercise, a headband to keep your ears warm; they can get very cold even if you’re producing enough heat to keep the rest of your body warm
Sunglasses; snow can cause a lot of glare. Make sure they have full UV protection (most do).
Optional: scarf and/or ski mask; on the very cold days, especially if it’s also windy, it can be helpful to keep your face covered.
Chapstick; the air is pretty dry in the winter.
Torso:
A moderately warm jacket and a very warm jacket, for varying temperatures; I use a modular ski jacket, which has an outer shell and an inner lining. The lining can be easily detached and used as a stand-alone jacket on less cold days.
Sweater: depending on the temperature at work, you may feel you need one. Also, at home, wearing a sweater is a lot cheaper than cranking the heat up high.
Hands:
Get a good pair of gloves. I cannot emphasize this enough. Preferably get gloves with some grip to them, to make things like opening doors easier.
Moisturizing lotion; as mentioned before, winter air is very dry.
Legs:
Most people don’t really do much differently here.
Optional: Long underwear can be helpful, depending on how easily you get cold.
If you will be getting exercise outdoors and are male, wear an extra pair of underwear, ideally not very breathable. Why is left as an exercise for the reader.
Feet:
Insulated boots are very useful, though not absolutely necessary. In urban areas, there are often a lot of puddles from melting snow, so make sure they’re very waterproof, too.
In a less urban area or on a large college campus where you may have to trudge through deep-ish snow, I would also recommend gators to keep the snow from getting inside your shoes.
Snowshoes and spikes are unnecessary.
Wool socks are helpful, depending on how easily you get cold.
Other things:
I find a sun lamp helpful; YMMV.
People spend more time indoors with less ventilation, so diseases spread more easily. Take precautions as appropriate.
Somebody is welcome to tell me I’m irrational, but my experience (which doesn’t seem to be unique) is that chapstick and lip balm can be really really habit forming—there is something about putting chapstick on that makes always using chapstick a priority—when I stopped using chapstick my lips were drying than before I started. Here are a few links. Note the big difference betwen chapstick, lip balm, and medicated lip balm though. It could easily have been all in my head (which doesn’t make it not real sadly). Not surprisingly, there isn’t some conspiracy to add irritants to them or anything, it may just be habit forming in the good old fashioned way. http://www.lipbalmanonymous.com/is-lip-balm-addictive/ http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Dermatology/Is-chapstick-really-addictive/show/239683 http://www.snopes.com/business/secret/carmex.asp
I’m not sure how common this is but I spent a couple of long weekends (the early Arisias) in a hotel somewhere outside Boston during winter, and the air was so dry that it took my sinuses years to recover. Sleeping with a humidifier might be a good idea.