The Nine Nines of winter

Mongolia is a cooooold place to be in the winter. How cold? Well, the lows for this week have been about -35 to -40 degrees Fahrenheit. What does weather that cold feel like?

First, the moisture in your nose freezes almost immediately which feels really strange. Then, you hurry to cover up every scrap of exposed skin because after being exposed for more than a minute or two it feels like it's burning. If you're still outside after 5 minutes hopefully you're walking or you probably feel like you're turning into a human icicle. After walking outside for 5-10 minutes the steam from your breath has frozen onto your eyelashes and eyebrows. By 15-20 minutes your hands and feet are aching from the cold even though you're wearing 2 pairs of heavy wool socks, insulated boots, and heavy duty gloves stuffed in the pockets of your down coat. Pretty intense!

The good thing is that it warms up enough during the day to go out in relative comfort. The warmest part of the day is from 1-4pm, when it usually gets up to at least -18 degrees. Practically tropical! The coldest part of the day is about 6-8am, when people are waking up and heading out to work. Ouch!

Mongolians describe the cold in their own way. They say that winter lasts 81 days and is broken up into nine sets of nine days, each with a name that describes how cold it is.

First nine: milk vodka freezes
Second nine: vodka freezes
Third nine: the tail of the 3 year old ox freezes
Fourth nine: the horns of the 4 year old ox freeze
Fifth nine: boiled rice does not freeze any more
Sixth nine: roads become visible
Seventh nine: hilltops appear
Eighth nine: the ground becomes damp
Ninth nine: warm days set in

Right now we're in the Fourth nine, which explains why the forecast for the end of this week predicts lows of -49 degrees. I might have to get up early and stick my head outside just to see what that feels like!