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0°F by ucblockhead (4.00 / 1) #4 Sun Jul 30, 2006 at 09:49:27 AM EST

At 0°F exposed skin is in danger of frostbite fairly quickly. Even if you keep your core temperature up, you're still in danger of losing extremities.
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_{ウセーバラケダ}
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esp. feet on pavement. by gzt (4.00 / 1) #5 Sun Jul 30, 2006 at 03:38:33 PM EST

at 32°F, bare feet on pavement will get bad frostbite in a few minutes. i believe things get exponentially worse as temperatures drop.

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I have personal experience by Alan Crowe (4.00 / 1) #7 Mon Jul 31, 2006 at 05:18:26 PM EST

I like to go barefoot. I live in Edinburgh, Scotland, and remain barefoot all but a few days through the winter. When the puddles are frozen it is obviously below 32°F. I wrap up warm so that my body has surplus heat to dump and my feet flush with blood. My toes remain pink, wiggly and happy, and I still have them all.

Far from getting frostbite in a few minutes, I do not find 32°F unpleasant enough to be bothered putting my shoes on, even when I will be wearing them later for social reasons and have them in my bag with me.

I don't know how big a role acclimatisation plays. Perhaps if you fly in from living in Congo and try going barefoot in the Scottish winter you will get frostbite. Also Edinburgh is on the Firth of Forth and never gets much below freezing so 0°F might be a different matter entirely, I won't know.

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fair nuff. by gzt (2.00 / 0) #8 Mon Jul 31, 2006 at 05:51:34 PM EST

some people's mileage may vary, but things do get exponentially worse. you're right, 32°F isn't so bad, but some people will be frostbitten soon enough, and 0°F is quite dangerous.

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more personal experience by LoppEar (4.00 / 1) #9 Wed Aug 02, 2006 at 03:40:06 PM EST

Barefoot in wisconsin winters:

Below 15 deg F or so it is unbearably cold after about 5 minutes - start to lose feeling etc.
If there is existing snow that can stick to your feet, even a minute is enough to start to numb.

0F is decidedly different from 32F. But these are feet we're talking about, not core temp & death.

This abstract of a study suggests that nude exposure to 0F gives a survival time of 9hrs.

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