{"id":151527,"date":"2023-02-09T15:14:47","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T20:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=151527"},"modified":"2023-02-10T13:16:06","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T18:16:06","slug":"nescac-chill-poll-i-survived-minus-30-celsius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2023\/02\/09\/nescac-chill-poll-i-survived-minus-30-celsius\/","title":{"rendered":"NESCAC Chill Poll for Feb. 4: ‘I survived minus 30 Celsius!’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After last weekend\u2019s cold snap, Sakina Saidi ’26 and her fellow Bobcats have some bragging rights with friends back home. \u201cOh yeah,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018I survived minus 30 Celsius!\u2019 That\u2019s a big achievement!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether expressed in Celsius, the temperature scale used in Saidi\u2019s homeland of Afghanistan, or in Fahrenheit, the scale used around here, it was beaucoup<\/em> degrees below zero last Friday night into Saturday morning, Feb. 3\u20134, on the Bates campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bates didn\u2019t quite get down to Saidi\u2019s estimate of 30 below Celsius, which equals 22 degrees below Fahrenheit, but pretty close: It was 15.3 degrees below zero, according to a nearby Weather Underground reporting station. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Bates, that was good for fourth place in the year\u2019s first NESCAC Chill Poll, our occasional ranking of the coldest campuses in the \u2019Cac. (Full results below). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Wearing a jaunty yellow vest, the hallmark of student representatives in the Academic Resource Commons, Sakina Saidi \u201826 said that experiencing sub-zero cold gives Bates students some bragging rights. (Jay Burns\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The northwest wind, which was swift and steady at 25 mph all night, pushed the wind chill to 40-plus degrees below zero. So if you know your Bates campus geography, that means you would get a face full of eyelash-freezing (true!) wind leaving Commons or Alumni Gym.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a mostly balmy winter, the cold definitely was a wakeup call. \u201cI think people are like, \u2018Oh wow, Maine winter is no joke,\u201d said Sydney Schuster ’25 of Simsbury, Conn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She and other students heeded the call to dress in layers. \u201cAfter walking to Commons, it was 10 minutes to get them all off,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schuster likes how Mainers \u201cembrace the cold. In Connecticut, they just get afraid of it. There’s a culture here around cold weather. I think that’s fun \u2014 it brought the people together, in a weird way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kellen Seth ’25 of Ambler, Pa., also embraced the “As Maine Goes” vibe. “I came to college in Maine. It’s what I expect,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
“It’s what I expect,” said Kellen Seth ’25 of Ambler, Pa., embracing the layering idea with a hood and a Philadelphia Eagles hat as the cold descended on Feb. 3, 2023. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

What was also fun for these Bates students was how it felt on Sunday when the temperature went above freezing and then on Monday, when it shot to above 40 degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt made me appreciate when it\u2019s even 20 out,\u201d said Elsa Daulerio \u201826 of Harpswell, Maine. \u201cWe were in shorts yesterday,\u201d added Sophie Spolter \u201826 of Blacklick, Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the cold departed on Sunday, Saidi called her mother and told her that the day was very warm. \u201cWhat is the temperature?\u201d her mother asked. \u201cI said, \u20181 degree Celsius.\u2019 And she said, \u2018That is not warm!\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But it felt warm to me!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
11. Wesleyan: 6.5 degrees below zero<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"CardinalW_RC_BW\"<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
10. Connecticut College: 7.4 degrees below zero<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"Conn<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
9. Tufts: 8.3 degrees below zero (at the university)<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"jumbo_200_new\"<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
8. Trinity: 8.9 degrees below zero<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"bantam_color\"<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
7. Amherst: 11.2 degrees below zero (at the college)<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
5. Williams: 13.9 degrees below zero (at the college)<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
6. Bowdoin: 14.8 degrees below zero<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"Bowdoin\"<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
4. Bates: 15.3 degrees below zero<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"Print\"<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
3. Colby: 16.8 degrees below zero<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"Colby_color\"<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
2. Hamilton: 18.9 degrees below zero<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"hamilton<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
1. Middlebury: 20.3 degrees below zero<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"middlebury<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Temperatures are taken from Weather Underground reporting stations at or close to each campus. On-campus reporting stations are noted.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After last weekend\u2019s cold snap, Sakina Saidi \u201826 and her fellow Bobcats have some bragging rights \u2014 even though Bates wasn’t the coldest college in NESCAC on Feb. 3. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":151576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[11012],"tags":[11015],"class_list":["post-151527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-life","tag-nescac-chill-poll"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151527"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151681,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151527\/revisions\/151681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}