Here’s Why a 50-Degree Day Feels Colder in Fall Than in Spring

Why is it that your legs can handle the cold when the rest of your body can't?

OK. I just tell folks that my blood hasn't thickened up yet. And what about those folks I see with bare legs - usually women - sometimes men - on the coldest days. What's up with that?

After spending a year in Rochester, New York, a year considered by many to be one of the coldest and snowiest of the last 50 years, it took me a good year or more to need to wear a coat back in Brooklyn. I simply didn't need anything more than a sweater. Those first cold, minus-zero days in Rochester, my tears would fall and freeze while I was waiting for the bus. After a while, I got over it and wore only a woolen shirt to pick up my Sunday New York Times. But then, I was young.

Dew points also play a part in adjusting to cold (or heat). In the fall the dew points begin to drop substantially, making the air a whole lot drier. Conversely, in the spring and, of course, in the summer the dew points raise dramatically. My body responds a positively to dry, cold weather, while heat and high dew points drain me -- physically and emotionally.

Its all what you're used to. I wont lie, I laughed when I found out that 50F is 10 C, which is pretty balmy up here. A decent amount of people here in Canada (me among them) don't get out the coat until it dips below freezing and then the winter coat when it starts to go below negative 10 C (14 F).

I've often wondered about this exact same question: why 50 degrees is colder in the fall than the spring. Obviously, after very cold temperatures in the winter, 50 seems mild, but I searched for another explanation when in school for Eastern Medicine. No one every mentions this but in the fall, the immune system ramps up production of some of its common factors, effectively thickening the blood. I also see, as a practitioner, as the weather cools, acute conditions arise, for example back pain that suddenly worsens (as the article mentions, the blood vessels constrict), or coming down with a cold, seemingly out of nowhere.

I used to ride a motorcycle even in winter. After a while my body could no longer 'shiver' when I was cold. It took me a couple of years to be able to shiver again; as we know shivering heats our body.

Isn't the answer obvious to anyone who has experienced a large swing in temps in a short time? Or changes in elevation? My body adapts to the new normal in a few days or a week. I went from sea level to 8,000 feet in the Sierras while sleep deprived. Felt terrible for three days, then better.

There's something called a thermoneutral zone. I may be spelling that wrong. It's the idea that our bodies should be more cool in the winter and warm in the summer -- not to let the air conditioning and heat control things too much. It's apparently good for metabolism and overall health. I learned it from an Eastern Medicine physician.

Here in Oregon, people start dressing like it's a February day in Wisconsin when the thermometer drops to a mere 40 F. Hats, scarfs, mittens. Is it style? I don't think so. They wonder how people who do come from a winter climate survive for oh-so-many months of sub-freezing temperatures. 20 and sunny is a whole lot more comfortable than 40 and damp.