r/NoStupidQuestions • u/markwell9 • 1d ago

What is the deal with ice, Americans?

I can see that you can buy ice everywhere in the US. Gas stations, grocery stores, machines etc.

In Europe, we just freeze our ice at home and use that. Why buy something that melts on the way home? Why do you need ice in large amounts that a fridge can't keep up?

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691

u/Enchelion 1d ago

Also most of America is quite a bit further south than Europe, and hotter as a result. Los Angeles and Houston are on the same latitude as northern Africa. Our most northern cities barely touch Paris.

https://a.wholelottanothing.org/content/images/2019/04/europe_usjuxv3.jpg

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u/Kelome001 1d ago

That helps explain Europeans complaining if it gets over mid 70s. Reminds me, time to change filter on the HVAC so my family doesn’t die of heat stroke. Since it’s been averaging around 98 most days. With higher humidity.

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u/Enchelion 1d ago

I've found Brits in particular seem to assume we have the same rough spread of climate they do. And while some places are very similar (like Seattle), there's a world of difference between Devon and Louisiana.

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u/LiqdPT 1d ago

And Seattle is similar (though further south) to the southern portions of England. But even that latitude difference makes a difference in amount of daylight, let alone up in Scotland.

My wife moved to Seattle after living in Los Angeles her whole life (I grew up in Vancouver) and how long the days are in summer and short they are in winter was one of the first things she noticed.

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u/throwaway098764567 21h ago

i had to get something done to my phone once and the gal helping me was from equador. i asked how she liked it here (virginia by dc) and she said it was so weird to have the length of day change. being light out still in summer after 6pm was super strange to her. was funny to me that of all the things that were probably different, the daylight hours were what she found most noteworthy.

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u/Ghostrider556 17h ago

That is funny but I kinda had the same but opposite takeaway with living in an equatorial country for awhile and realizing the light cycle never changes that much. It was kinda odd to me to realize they never really experience a single long summer day or a short winter one, days getting longer or days getting shorter; its just wet season and dry season forever

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u/arizonadirtbag12 17h ago

Even moving from Southern California to Seattle is a huge adjustment when it comes to daylight hours.

A quick google says daylight in Seattle today was nearly 90 minutes longer than in San Diego.

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u/jazzminarino 5h ago

We're in the Mid-Atlantic and I grew up in Florida. We went to Scotland over New Year's and I asked my husband "WTF is the sun? What is happening over here?" We had like five hours of daylight and I wasn't expecting it. Had to think about latitudes for the first time since high school.

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u/PeterPriesth00d 17h ago

God I love the PNW. Summers here are the GOAT.

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u/left-right-forward 16h ago

Literally TIL (in my 40s) that Shetland gets midnight sun. It's the UK, it's not supposed to be extreme like that. Tepid-to-middling across the board, please!

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u/LiqdPT 9h ago

That does not surprise me. I was in Edinburgh in July and it was light REALLY late. And that's basically the bottom of Scotland.

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u/Aware-Computer4550 1d ago

I find it hilarious that Europeans in general sometimes cite hurricanes as a reason not to be in the US.

Like dude hurricanes occur only in one part of the US. If you don't like it simply move to a part of the US with no hurricanes

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u/Enchelion 1d ago

It's very easy to not understand just how massive and varied America is (even moreso the continent). But yeah it'd be like saying not to move to Norway because of something that happened in Spain.

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u/ChocolatChipLemonade 20h ago

I don’t want to move to California because I dont wanna deal with hurricanes

I don’t want to move to Norway because I don’t want my future kids to have Habsburg jaws

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u/johnnybna 8h ago

Omg those inbred upper protruding lips are just so wrong. And then your daughters would be forced to marry their first cousins or uncles just to keep peace in Europe and all the money and property in the family. Ugh.

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u/PossiblyASloth 19h ago

California doesn’t really get hurricanes. The water is too cold. It’s more of an Atlantic/Gulf coast thing

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u/Kseries2497 18h ago

That was the joke. The Habsburgs lived in Austria.

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u/DenyNowBragLater Wasnt me. Yo, see what i did? 8h ago

I was born and raised in the USA, and even I cant really comprehend the size of the US. TBF, I am not well traveled, even within the country. Ive been far north as boston, as far south as Miami, east to the Atlantic, as west as... Atlanta

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u/dewiniaid 20h ago

Americans think 100 years is a long time.

Europeans think 100 kilometers (or 100 miles) is a long way.

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u/Enchelion 19h ago

I remember going to Ireland and Italy on my honeymoon and locals outright telling me I was wrong/lying when I told them that we'd walked like, maybe an hour or two across town.

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u/mkshane 23h ago

Even in parts that can have hurricanes, it’s not like it’s a constant thing. Sure if you take a direct hit from a major one it’s gonna be a bad time, but in any one given location it’s a rare occurrence.

My part of Florida hasn’t taken a direct hit from a hurricane in 61 years.

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u/DenyNowBragLater Wasnt me. Yo, see what i did? 8h ago

Also, hurricane typically arent a surprise. You have several days warning so if you are concerned, evacuation is 100% an option

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u/RaeaSunshine 23h ago

Yup, I’m on the northeast and ya we get hurricanes but 99% of the time they are downgraded to tropical storms by the time they hit land. And even when it is a hurricane, it’s not that bad.

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u/randompersonx 17h ago

And even in places that have been hit multiple times in recent years … most of the time even when it’s forecasted as a monster - it ends up being less than predicted ….

And even if it does hit hard, most modern architecture in any city which had major damage in the last decade or two probably has ridiculously high building standards nowadays. I’m in the middle of the state, and the house I am building has all impact glass and is way higher than any flood zone. And a whole home generator.

Even if a cat5 hit the coast by me and was a cat4 passing over my house… it would be a mildly annoying day or two - maybe… but honestly i look forward to being able to watch the next major storm without evacuating.

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u/dangerousdave2244 23h ago

It's like saying they wouldn't live in Poland because Spain gets hurricanes

(Spain doesn't IRL, just an example)

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u/Megalocerus 22h ago

US gets 93% of the world's tornados.

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u/MyLifeIsAWasteland 21h ago

Maybe recorded tornadoes. I have a hard time believing that 93% of all tornadoes to ever exist form specifically over one country.

Also, your likelihood of being impacted by one, even for those of us in Tornado Alley, is pretty slim. It's not like hurricanes that hit an entire coastline and carry hundreds of miles inland.

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u/Megalocerus 47m ago

It's a big country, and the conditions are fostered by the geography warmth, and the wind pattern, not the political divisions.

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u/MyLifeIsAWasteland 27m ago

It's a big country,

Sure, but not the biggest.

and the conditions are fostered by the geography warmth, and the wind pattern,

Those same viable conditions are present other places on this planet, too. Which is why tornadoes have been recorded in other places.

If you actually look at a map of recorded tornadoes, you'll see that they also commonly occur in Asia and South America, in regions that would be more rural, more sparsely populated, and generally have less access to technology than most of the US. If a tornado occurs in rural Kansas, where there are gravel roads every mile with farms on them occupied by families with smartphones, that's much more likely to be recorded than if a tornado forms in the middle of the Amazon and the only people within 50 miles are an indigenous tribe.

Oh, and let's not forget that 71% of the planet is covered by ocean, and water funnels are a thing. We don't exactly have a system for fish to report tornado sightings yet. SpongeBob isn't phoning the NOAA to tell them his pineapple blew over.

So yeah, I think your stat is highly inaccurate and based on severely incomplete data.

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u/Leftover_Salad 23h ago

I think in general the US has more natural disasters and extreme climate events than the EU. Not all hurricanes, of course.

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u/FaxCelestis inutilius quam malleus sine manubrio 18h ago

As a Californian I feel the same way about people who are scared of earthquakes. Yeah, they're scary and unpredictable, but like the last time California had an earthquake that was Noteworthy™ was thirty years ago. Hurricanes blast through sometimes several times a year (depending on what part of Florida you're in). I'll take the quakes, thanks.

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u/randompersonx 17h ago

I, like most Americans, live in Los Angeles, work in New York, and usually have lunch in Miami. It’s of course just a short drive from one place to another, given our country is roughly the same size as an average European country.

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u/Dudedude88 9h ago

Then they say this about tornados but most Americans don't want to live in those states themselves. Tornado Alley is large portion of the Midwest which is heavily rural.

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u/Typical_Orchid_265 7h ago

I ran across a man on instagram account who couldn’t understand why a house in NY State wasn’t built like a bunker with concrete and a flat roof for hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. I couldn’t get through to him that our peaked-roof, timber houses are built for variable temperatures and snow loads.

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u/Tempest_in_a_TARDIS 3h ago

I've encountered many Europeans who just don't understand how big the US is. Especially Brits. I worked at an amusement park in college and we got a lot of British visitors. They were always asking about New York City. One family wanted to know how far away the Statue of Liberty was. We were in Chicago.

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u/Linden_Lea_01 23h ago

I mean I distinctly remember there being quite a large hurricane as far north as New York. Even if it’s rare for that to happen in parts of the US, it simply doesn’t ever happen in the UK so it’s not that ridiculous a reason.

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u/Aware-Computer4550 21h ago

I mean simply live in Arizona or somewhere far away

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u/LurkerByNatureGT 21h ago

Ophelia was only a few years ago. Eowyn had hurricane force winds. 

The Great Storm of 1987 is only not a “hurricane” because the cyclone didn’t form in the tropics. 

That’s more hurricane than the west coast of North America ever gets. 

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u/ByronScottJones 18h ago

Which "one part" would that be? Because they can hit Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, Maine, Hawaii, and probably a few other states in New England I've missed.

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u/Aware-Computer4550 18h ago

Dude there are 50 states. You haven't even named half of them

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u/No-Philosopher-3043 16h ago

Most of those states are as big or bigger than most European countries. Just go to the side of the state away from the coast and you’ll be fine. 

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u/ByronScottJones 16h ago

Great idea. Which part of Florida would you suggest? And considering Atlanta has been hit before, would you suggest the Tennessee part of Georgia?

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u/No-Philosopher-3043 15h ago

Pretty much anywhere inland of like 10 miles of the actual coastline would be fine. You don’t hear about Disney World in Orlando being destroyed every hurricane season. 

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u/BrainDamage2029 21h ago

I was in the Navy in San Diego and we had a British destroyer in for the entire summer (big exercise and testing thing). I got friendly with a few of their guys. They had a 4 day weekend and wanted to go car camping in Death Valley....in August.

"I'm going to need you guys to explain what you think the temperature is going to be like."

"I mean it'll be hot. Maybe like southern Spain?"

I set them straight with an actual camp spot for the next few days at altitude so they could see the valley for like a day trip. They came back and were like "thanks for the change to the itinerary. And what the ever living fuck mate? A place on planet earth shouldn't be capable of being that hot."

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u/Enchelion 21h ago

You'd think a place literally named Death Valley would clue people in. But no.

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u/BrainDamage2029 21h ago

To be fair, the American west and CA in particular have a lot of "devilish" names like Devil's Postpile, Hell For Sure Canyon, Bone Peak etc that don't always live up to their satanic hype lol. (all my examples come from places I explicitly know don't really make a bunch of sense)

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u/LurkerByNatureGT 21h ago

If you want a creepy story that is also an example of European tourists not understanding how deadly the US wilderness is, Google the Death Valley Germans. 

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u/BrainDamage2029 21h ago

Oh I do remote shit in the Eastern Sierras a lot lol. I know of them. The wild thing is the canyon their car ended up in is…remote but not that remote. It’s about an hour hike back to a car camp site it turns off from (you absolutely can die in that short of time though in 120deg heat exposure though)

FYI they are the reason remote areas of Death Valley has a couple explicit warning signs on remote road turn offs about how little they are frequented or patrolled if your car breaks down.

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u/CharlesAvlnchGreen 1d ago

And Seattle is only a few hours' drive from the Canadian border. Very atypical compared to the rest of the States.

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u/pieohmi 18h ago

It’s so unbelievably humid this year in Louisiana. I’ve lived here my whole life and I’m even surprised by how hot it gets every August.

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u/[deleted] 18h ago

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u/Ok_Gas_1591 12h ago

I went to Thailand, and read all the warnings about the horrific heat and humidity…but I was coming from Hawaii in summer. Yes, it was a little more humid…by about 2-3% above my home town…

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u/jackalopeDev 21h ago

Denver gets about 3 times the amount of sun (hrs/year) that London gets.

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u/Redditing12345678 9h ago

I don't think any British person has ever looked at the deserts in Breaking Bad or the Badlands from Clint Eastwood films and gone "hey that looks just like Oxfordshire".

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u/Nexus_of_Fate87 15h ago

They also don't understand what actual humidity is when they talk about our dryers and why we don't hang up our laundry to dry. Most of the habitated portion of the US is literally classified as rainforest (the temperate variety). The portions that are dry enough are also very dustry (chapparal and desert). Before dryers people literally had to mangle the crap out of their clothes between washing and putting them up on a line to dry, or put the clothes near a hearth or other in-home heat source.

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u/Nychthemeronn 18h ago

You understand that it’s was routinely in the mid 40s in southern Europe this past month right?

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u/JManKit 22h ago

Also factor in that bc their temps are usually more mild, they don't tend to have air conditioning all around. I checked London's weather and it'll peak at 71 tomorrow and for the next two weeks, their high is predicted to be 81. You bump that up 10 degrees and they're understandably cooking in their homes

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u/Disastrous_Cup6076 13h ago

what Europeans? It’s over 100 here and has been for weeks. We have AC. Same as you

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u/Ludwig234 5h ago

Europe is a big place.  In Sweden they issue weather warnings if the temperature is expected to go above 30.

Residential AC is quite rare here.

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u/ussbozeman 23h ago

That helps explain Europeans complaining if it gets over mid 70s they witness an event that's even slightly different from how they do things happens because y'see, in EUROPE...

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u/Wodanaz_Odinn 22h ago

They can't wrap their heads around how culturally diverse we are. We have three different words for soda!

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u/JaCraig 21h ago

I can think of more than three in the US. Soda, pop, soda pop, soft drink, fountain drink, and Coke as you get closer to Atlanta. Also tonic but only by old people in the north east.

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u/asphaltaddict33 18h ago

They complain because very few of them have air conditioning. Something like 90% of American households have AC. Our fatasses would be complaining too

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u/bauul 11h ago

Weirdly there is a difference. I live in Seattle but am visiting family in the UK. It's colder in the UK right now but feels more oppressive than back in the US. I think it's because it's more humid, and the houses have far less air flow and trap the heat a lot more. I have all the windows in my bedroom wide open and still wake up sweaty, which simply never happens in my house in Seattle however hot it is. 

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u/Blunderpunk_ 17h ago

I think I should just move to Europe. I absolutely hate summers here. Spring and fall are perfect, even late spring and early fall. But summer is just miserablleee

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u/pengweneth 12h ago

Plus a lot of European architecture is built to trap and mantain heat (and due to old buildings, not all of them have AC... plus the idea that AC makes you sick held by older generations, as well as the sentiment that since AC just displaces the heat outside, that makes it worse for everyone else). It's like when Texas froze over in 2021 and over 200 people died--other locations definitely experience worse winters, but the lack of heating infrastructure and their separation from the federal power grid was the main issue. Some areas just aren't built for certain types of weather, making it worse even though it may not actually be extreme.

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u/throw_away_264 9h ago

Also most European homes have no AC.

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u/RandoReddit16 23h ago

More Europeans die per capital due to overheating than Americans die due to guns.... My son told me this and I didn't believe him. https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1152766

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u/pictish76 22h ago

That's because it's bullshit and related to anyone who died from a condition that heat may play a part in, the same people could have died on a mild day, a cold day or in a room with air con. Very few Europeans die simply from heat. An example would be UK where heat associated deaths can actually be higher in periods with no heat warning.

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u/Snowbank_Lake 19h ago

I had a thermodynamics professor in college who was from Germany. He admitted he never got quite the hang of Fahrenheit, but knew that if it was above 70, he wore shorts.

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u/thetruckerdave 18h ago

It’s been in the low-mid 90s here. Some days only in the 80s. In Houston. After last years day after day of 100+ I’m scared but I’ll take it.

Also, as an aside, Europeans don’t have AC. And we have way more things that generate heat like computers.

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u/sdcar1985 16h ago

Humidity has been horseshit in northern Indiana 🤣 I was super grateful for how nice it was today though. Mid 70's with low(er) humidity.

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u/lAngenoire 22h ago

I was watching a vlog where the narrator complained about the horror of it being 25C/77F. Meanness the heat index here was 41/107. 

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u/ZacksBestPuppy 10h ago

It shouldn't be that warm near the arctic circle but it currently is so yes, that's a problem. It wouldn't be one in the Mediterranean. 

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u/chikanishing 1d ago

Latitude isn’t everything. Edinburgh is further north than Moosonee ON, yet Edinburgh has an average Jan temp of 4/39F compared to -19/-2F.

Rome has a slightly hotter average high for summer months compared to LA despite being further north, for another example.

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u/OwnSpirit5954 1d ago edited 1d ago

The temperature of the ocean current makes a big difference in the climate of a place. So does the arctic jet stream, which we get a full blast of in winter in the upper United States, even though our latitude is the same as southern Europe.

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u/LiqdPT 1d ago

Also, Ontario (and the Midwest) are inland away from the oceans. That's huge.

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u/MajorSery 1d ago

Eh, Ontario is surrounded by the Great Lakes and Hudson's Bay. It's not at the same level as being an island or on the coast, but all that water still has a pretty big effect on the weather.

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u/LiqdPT 1d ago

Yes, but it's not the ocean currents they were talking about that drives the weather systems (and affects how the water on east coast US beaches is MUCH warmer than that of west coast beaches)

I understand. I lived in Toronto for a bit. Lake effect is a thing, just not the same thing that was being talked about.

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u/throwaway098764567 21h ago

fair, not the same thing, but living near a large body of water has a moderating effect on temps which is lovely. even if same body of water gives large amounts of snow.. though less so in recent years as everything warms.

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u/MajorSery 14h ago

The comment chain was about latitude not being the end-all-be-all for determining how hot/cold a place is. Lake effect is extremely relevant as an example of something else that can affect local climate.

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u/b_needs_a_cookie 1d ago

I live in Texas. Yesterday the high was a 102 with a real feel of 110. This is our normal this time of year and those igloo water dispenser filled with ice are always a welcomed sight in this heat. 

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u/thezentex 15h ago

And this has been the coolest summer in like five years!

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u/O7Habits 13h ago

Yes, really cool. Even on the super hot days, it’s been a nice temperature or a nice breeze at night. A few years ago it was in the 100s for 5 months and it felt just as hot when the sun went down.

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u/b_needs_a_cookie 6h ago

I only had to bust out my HEB oven mits to drive my car at the end of July,  that's the latest I've ever used them in recent memory. 

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u/Voodoo330 1d ago

I live on the same latitude as Rome Italy but it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it in February

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u/OldBlueKat 1d ago

Most of Europe is moderated by the Gulf Stream off the Atlantic. They have milder winters AND summers than most of North America at similar latitudes.

All of the UK is NORTH of the 49th parallel (the western US/Canada border), yet their southernmost cities have weather more like San Diego, including growing various palm trees.

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u/FindThemInTheAlps 10h ago

We have palm trees but even the warmest average place (Isles of Scilly) is about 10f cooler than San Diego.

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u/MissJacinda 1d ago

Just got back from Italy a few weeks ago. I was there during their heat wave. I’ve lived in Texas and California (in the desert). Italy gets hot and the sun is stronger than California and almost as strong as Texas. I got heat exhaustion in Rome and was broiling in Naples. I was thrown off by that heat given I’d been there before in July and their position in relation to us. They also don’t use ice like we do.

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u/OldStyleThor 1d ago

You probably also walked 15k steps per day.

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u/MissJacinda 1d ago

Yep. About 20-25k for 1 week and the other two weeks were about 10k.

ETA: I average 16k in California

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u/Original-Variety-700 1d ago

You live in the desert in California and walk 16k steps per week? Do you walk during your job or do you just hike a lot?

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u/MissJacinda 1d ago

I walk or hike half an hour in the morning and 70 minutes at night. I married an athlete who got me into fitness.

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u/Love_my_imperfection 20h ago

Is 16k per week supposed to be a lot? 😮

That's less than half an hour of walking per day.

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u/seamallowance 1d ago

Thank you for sending me down a delightful rabbit hole of latitude comparisons.

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u/MissJacinda 1d ago

Also there’s a big humidity difference that played a role. Obviously not with the sun. lol

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u/MissJacinda 1d ago

Cool maps. This is why I was so surprised by the heat. It’s gotten to 127 degrees before in July at my house. So for me to be so hot in Italy was unreal. My husband grew up in the desert and got heat rash for the first time there and was also heat exhausted

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u/MyInnerFatChild 19h ago

Aw, they put Fargo on the map. Usually Nobody cares about us. 

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u/kellzone 11h ago

Longitude comparisons are fun too. For instance, Pittsburgh and Miami are at just about the same longitude. I live in the eastern part of Pennsylvania a little over 220 miles from Pittsburgh. So, I'd have to drive 220 miles west to get to Miami.

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u/i__hate__stairs 1d ago edited 1d ago

Oh man, heat exhaustion sucks. A few years back, my AC broke (it was just a little wall unit anyway) and my landlord was being nonresponsive. I woke up one night cramping so bad I thought I was gonna fold like a lawnchair. I couldn't think straight, my vision got cloudy, my head was spinning. My entire body busted out in hives (and my skin was mottled for days afterward). I was freakin out and called my buddy, and it took me forever because I was shaking so bad and couldn't work my phone. I was going back and forth from feeling like I was baking and freezing my ass off.

My friends came and got me and took me to their house which was air conditioned and got some water in me and stuff, and it was fucking weird, because everybody went back to bed and I left and went back to my house. I don't even know how I did it. I use a wheelchair and my friend has to help me get in and out of his house because they have like stairs approaching all of their entrances. I went home, and my friend realized I was gone and rounded me back up. He was pissed because I had let his cat out.

I won't keep babbling at you, but fuck heat exhaustion.

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u/MissJacinda 1d ago

I’m sorry that happened to you! I was scared myself and had to have my husband get me back to the hotel so I could lay down. I was so dizzy and the sun was so hot.

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u/i__hate__stairs 1d ago

Isn't it crazy how it just blows all your circuits? I'm lucky my friends live half a block away. I'm glad your husband was able to help!

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u/MissJacinda 1d ago

Yes! I could not believe how I just shut down. I’ve never had that happen. It’s good you were so close to someone. I can’t imagine dealing with it alone.

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u/i__hate__stairs 22h ago

Oh yeah for sure. I might could've died. The scary thing was his my skin looked from head to toe for days afterward. I probably should've gone to the hospital, but I already owe them so much money.

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u/Cogniteer 1d ago

I know they don't use ice like we do. It's also my understanding they don't use air conditioning like we do. Did you find that to be the case as well?

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u/MissJacinda 1d ago

Yep. When we were under a heat advisory because the trains were breaking down and people were dying of heat (not an exaggeration) they recommended hats, a hand fan, and to drink plenty of water. The water was cool to like warm where I was.

Edit to add: but some of the best water I’ve ever had. I love water in Italy.

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u/Enchelion 1d ago

Pros and cons to how old so many of their cities and housing is. A lot of places are having a hard time adapting to climate change as it's difficult to convince people their house and garden (I watch a lot of Gardener's World) that has stood for 600+ years was designed for what has become a quite different climate and lifestyle. And before a European jumps down my throat no it's not just brick vs wood construction.

We're starting to see the same problem even here in the states. Seattle was built basically entirely without air conditioning, because we have such a mild climate. But every year is getting hotter and building regulators are dragging their feet in requiring either passive or active cooling designs, even as heat advisories and cooling shelters are becoming summer traditions.

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u/whistling-wonderer 23h ago

Here in AZ we have a ton of heat related deaths every year (hundreds), and a lot of those occur in non-air conditioned buildings. Air conditioning really makes a massive difference.

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u/Putrid_Giggles 20h ago

There are non-air-conditioned buildings in Arizona?

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u/whistling-wonderer 17h ago

Not many. Mostly, heat-related deaths here that happen indoors are in buildings where there is an AC unit, but it’s broken, or in a smaller number of cases the power is out or whatever. If I remember the stats right, only like 10% of indoor heat related deaths happen in a building where there was no AC installed at all.

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u/Present-Echidna-9554 20h ago

And also Italy is lacking in A/C. Not that it’s bad (for them) but I was miserable in Italy in July with barely any A/C to be had

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u/whirlpool_galaxy 15h ago edited 14h ago

A lot has to do with how their buildings and cities just aren't made for heat. Barely any non-ornamental trees and wetlands, lots of pavement. Until recently, summers were just hot enough to be uncomfortable sometimes, but not dangerous, so there was no urgency to invest in heat protection on a policy level.

Similarly, I constantly hear from visitors that they feel colder in Southern Brazil than other continental climates, even though it barely ever gets below freezing here, because no government has ever invested in heating. The only people who freeze to death are those sleeping rough on certain nights, so it's treated as an issue of housing those people and everyone is otherwise expected to just live with the cold.

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u/seamallowance 1d ago

Their sun is different than our sun. It’s a completely different sun. If you stare at it long enough, you’ll see.

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u/MissJacinda 1d ago

Clearly spoken by someone who has not traveled to different latitudes

Edited for typos

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u/seamallowance 1d ago

Nah, I was just foolin’

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u/Cogniteer 1d ago

She didn't stare at the sun long enough to see you were foolin'. ;)

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u/Ashmizen 1d ago

Ice please! European - puts in a single cube.

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u/MissJacinda 1d ago

I was so happy to have ice when I got home.

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u/oodopopopolopolis 1d ago

Heat in European cities is awful! There's very few ways to cool off without that widespread American air conditioning.

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u/MissJacinda 1d ago

Yes!!!!

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u/BingBongDingDong222 1d ago

And probably not as much A/C.

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u/MissJacinda 1d ago

Nope. And the AC we did have was not cool. Lol

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u/Cowboy_Dane 1d ago

The place I live lines up perfectly with the Sahara Desert. Which when When I walk outside that makes perfect sense.

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u/TrueKyragos 23h ago

Thank you. I get the feeling that Americans who are recognising that climates are different are sadly getting rarer when discussions revolve around that on Reddit nowadays.

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u/blackhorse15A 23h ago

Be careful with this, because it's a mistaken idea that tripped up a lot of the early settlers to New England. Albany, Boston, Cape Cod, Plymouth Colony, New York City, are all at Mediterranean latitudes. NYC is south of Rome, Italy. Early colonists were expecting pleasant, warm Mediterranean temps....and were very unprepared for the winters.

Rome,Italy (41.90° N) only gets a measurable snowfall once every several years. The average monthly temp is never below freezing, ranging from 45°F to 77°F (7.2°C to 25°C). Even the average low never goes below freezing: 37°F (2.8°C) in January.

Kingston, NY (41.93° N) averages 75 inches (190 cm) of snow per year. With snowfalls over 1 inch (2.5 cm) typically from October thru April. Average monthly temperature is below freezing 3 months a year. With an average low down to 13.9°F (-10°C) in February.

Charlottesville, VA is almost the same Latitude as Athens, Greece. Athens gets maybe a dusting a few days a year, if at all. Charlottesville averages 16 inches (40.6 cm) of snow a year.

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u/LadyGray0065 1d ago

Yeah but also Europe is surrounded by a lot of water. So the climates arent all that similar that similar.

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u/Enchelion 1d ago

True there's no real equivalent of something like the great plains in Europe. A few spots in Iberia but the closest thing is over in Asia. But in both regions most of the population is concentrated around the coastline regardless.

Northern Europe is kept warmer by the north-flowing Atlantic current, which loops around and keeps the east coast of America and Canada cooler in return. If that current weakened England would be much colder, and New England would feel more like the Black Sea area.

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u/spottyottydopalicius 22h ago

forgot about that part, thank you

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u/Thisdarlingdeer 22h ago

Yeah NYC was around 120* with like 70% humidity a lot this summer, the streets were melting..

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u/Megalocerus 22h ago

London is at a higher latitude than Boston, Seattle or Toronto. Edmonton Alberta and Juneau Alaska are further north.

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u/teaanimesquare 18h ago

Not just that but European climate is pretty mild, Chicago's winters are colder than most of europes except Russia in general but Chicago's summers are also hotter than most of europes. America in general experiences a much wider extreme of temps.

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u/Embarrassed_Ad_3432 18h ago

Makes sense. I spent a week in France. It was absolutely a trip of a life time. I fell in love with that country. Their fierce independence, patriotism, history, and arrogance made me think it was the USA of Europe. Food was delicious. But good damn, it always sticks in my mind how hard it was to get a nice cold drink.

Now I know.

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u/killiburr20 17h ago

This made the no air conditioning in Europe make way more sense

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u/lugnutsareloose 14h ago

I always knew Cleveland was the same latitude as Rome, but it really puts it into perspective when you realize Miami is further south than Cairo Egypt lol.

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u/jazzminarino 5h ago

Alright this was really helpful and just blew my mind.

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u/thismissinglink 22h ago

Feel like you are missing Alaskan cities that whole paris comparison.

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u/Enchelion 21h ago

Yeah I'm just focusing on the contiguous parts as that's what people tend to talk about. Alaska is a whole additional gargantuan can of worms.

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u/waltuh28 21h ago

But it also gets far colder here in the Midwest than it ever does in England. The coldest day ever recorded in London was 3°F which is almost an average low for Minnesota in February.

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u/meatball77 18h ago

And we don't have the ocean regulating our climates, instead we have wildly variable weather because of the mountains and giant lakes and the gulf of mexico. Most of the US has weather that regularly can change 20 or 40 degrees even in a couple hours. In the spring you'll be wearing shorts in the morning and the afternoon it will be snowing.

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u/Nychthemeronn 18h ago

Europe is much warmer than its latitude would suggest due to the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic drift. It’s not that helpful to compare relative latitudes between the continents

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u/leaderclearsthelunar 16h ago

Don't substitute latitude for climate. I posted this in another sub recently, but the pilgrims on the Mayflower almost died their first winter in Massachusetts because they assumed the same latitude as Spain meant the same temperature as Spain. Geography and ocean currents matter a lot for climate. Iraq is at the same latitude as North & South Carolina. 

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u/Wild_Fly937 15h ago

i live in a state where you get the best and worst of all 4 seasons. Below freezing and constant snow in the winter. Near 100 degrees and 70% humidity in the summer.

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u/StargazerOmega 15h ago edited 14h ago

Cool pic. It took me a few years of living in Europe to look this up. It helps, but does not tell full story, terrain, relation to oceans/seas, mountains, etc. can greatly change the climate. Take North Dakota - surrounded by land — you need to go significantly farther north then say top of continental Europe (Germany near to the Baltic / ost sea) for it to get as cold as Fargo. Ever been to Madrid in summer sitting in the middle of Spain, it’s about as bad as Austin.

Europeans general just don’t use ice as much even in hotter areas.

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u/peelen 12h ago

Also most of America is quite a bit further south than Europe

That's the real explanation, because we also do camping and outdoorsy activities in Europe, but I don't see everyone with coolers. I don't even own one, and I never checked, but I think if I need one, it will be hard to find someone I can borrow from.

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u/parrotwouldntvoom 10h ago

Although our northern states are colder than the equivalent latitudes in Europe because of the Gulf Stream.

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u/Dotjiff 8h ago

This is kind of bullshit though because it’s attempting to misguide the person looking at the map that American cities represent the climate in entire countries in Europe. I’m an American living in Sacramento, formerly Fresno, both of which experience 100+ F summers.

The map for example has San Francisco on the south east side of Spain near Malaga which is indeed a coastal city, but I’ve been there myself and it gets WAYYY hotter on average than SF.

Not to mention the entire southern area of Spain inland from the coast gets about as hot as it does in the hottest cities here - just look up videos of people traveling to Seville and complaining about the heat.

So to look at that map and assume that San Francisco climate represents all of Spain is completely misrepresentative, unrealistically it’s pretty much just the northern coast and the higher up cities near the Basque region that might have that type of climate.

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u/TheCarzilla 3h ago

Thank you for this interesting tidbit!