My first apartment in Calgary had an issue with the fire alarm going off in very cold nights since it was an old style that used (in part not the whole system) a piece of metal though the wall and went off when the difference between the inside and out side was to much (IE on fire inside). The issue was that when you keep the inside at +20C and the outside is -45C the alarm goes off and everyone has to go stand outside and wait for the all clear.

That being said I will take a dry Alberta winter over a damp one any day. -40 is fine with me (not if I stand outside too long and die though). Really once you are at -20 its not much different, just die/get frost bite faster.

Too hot even

Yeah, the Plains get pretty hot and humid, especially with the flatness and general lack of trees. I remember a 118°F day in east-river SD in 2005 or -6, a shitty day to be a lifeguard lol. At least there's a little geography in the Badlands, and you're close to the Black Hills, which are gorgeous. But yeah, they are called the Badlands for a reason lol.

this summer has been unlike others. you might have done the exact same thing in half the country.

when i was a kid (seems like eons ago) we vacationed there a lot, in north and south dakota (and a little mt and wy). mom and me loved the badlands. the terrain and features, wildlife, the night sky... i don't remember it ever being "too hot" to be outside. we camped, in a tent or popup; so outside is where we were basically all the time.

9/5(conversion ratio) of -40 is -72 which is 32(offset) below -40.

So... (9/5[F/C])*(-40[C])+32=-40[F] is where they meet.

Where I live in Sweden I have not seen quite that spread of temperatures yet. But not far off... I have seen -43C and +35C in the same area.

The largest recorded temperature change in one place over a 24-hour period occurred on January 15, 1972 in Loma, Montana, when the temperature rose from −54 to 49 °F (−47.8 to 9.4 °C).

Just a wild place

That's not even uncommon. We get that pretty much every year. People think it's cold all year around. Nope. Not at all

I grew up in the center of the red blob. Highest temp I remember is 112F and lowest is -52F. Those aren't even records. Wind is brutal as well.

The place I grew up in is one of the places marked on this map. At one point in time in the 90s we had one of the highest swings of temperature in a single day that had ever been recorded in a single place where we had nearly a 40 degree temperature difference between nighttime and daytime. It's also one of the highest diurnal temperature places. During the winter time, it often gets well below zero. And I believe the record set in the 30s was negative 43f degrees. In the hottest temperature in the summer has been well over 100, nearly 110. And for an area in the high desert, that is normal.

wait it isnt?

As a pretty much lifelong Wyomingite, it's not so bad. The wind is a bigger problem frankly.

Don't worry it's a dry cold

Thanks to global warming warming, that rash is spreading and it won’t be long until most live there.

The terrifying part is that adjacent to the Great Lakes was projected to be ground zero for incoming climate change refugees. Now it’s looking like they’ll be dried up

I live in Canada in one of those places. Once the area I live in was on the news because it was colder than Mars that day lol.

Maybe, but I’m of the opinion that the best places to be will be those with shade and working aquifers as those become fewer and fewer

Minnesotans don’t cry, we’re tougher than that, or at least have realized that if we do they either freeze or turn to steam.