someone is being wrong on the tv

[arduinna]

I am idly watching an old documentary show that involves some people who had to ditch into the North Sea, and the narrator has just earnestly and intently explained that "for a person in the water, hypothermia can begin when the temperatures of air and water added together is below 50 degrees Centigrade."

...

This is not an American show, and the narrator is definitely not American. So you would think he would have noticed how nonsensical that is.

(He does go on to say, quite accurately, that in the North Sea in winter, the temperature is far below that. I would be willing to go even further and say that the temperature of the North Sea is far below 122F even in the hottest days of summer.)

(hi!)

Comments

[ratcreature]

The North Sea near the coasts is around 4°C right now, but in warm winters it can get warmer, and in summer it reaching around 18°C (so around 64°F?) is fairly normal, sometimes 20°C even. But 20°C water still doesn't feel warm, and I assume you can get hypothermia if you stay in for a long time or something and aren't trained in cold water swimming?

I mean, obviously psome eople swim in very cold water and people can train to withstand stuff to some degree, but for bathing in the sea as a normal person, I've been told the rule of thumb that without protective gear you can stay only as many minutes as the water is in Celsius, or you'll get too cold, even if the water is at summer temperatures.

[arduinna]

Yep, you can get hypothermia in temps much warmer than you'd think. But even so I wouldn't have blinked if they'd said "50 degrees Fahrenheit", since that's a pretty standard -- okay, the only word that fits there is metric, heh. I remember being told something similar as a kid.

But 50 C - yikes!

the rule of thumb that without protective gear you can stay only as many minutes as the water is in Celsius, or you'll get too cold, even if the water is at summer temperatures.

Oh, I am totally using that, thanks! Much better than "if your lips start turning blue, get out of the water". (Although if your lips start turning blue, do get out of the water...)

[ratcreature]

With blue lips they stayed Fahrenheit water temperature minutes long...