 Two silly little lovers can't decide if their relationship is worth the effort. They're constantly on and off again. He's close for a good portion of the year, then inevitably splits up for some time away. But he always comes running back to her and she lets it happen because at the end of the day he's her rock and she's his fire. Their relationship has impacted the world since the very beginning of time and because us humans exist with him, we've got no choice but to go through the motions as well. Right now he's feeling cold. This video is all about winter. Brrrrrr. Winter is a controversial month across the globe. People either can't wait for it to show up or can't wait for it to go away. I'm one of those ones that enjoy it, being from a country that's super hot most of the time and all. When it finally cools down enough for the peak of winter, it feels like I finally have a break from the sweat and sunburn. I can pretend I'm one of those kids in the Christmas movies stuggling under a warm blanket by the fire, sipping on a hot chocolate and feeling cozy. Except it's July for some reason. In fact, growing up with the typical American Christmas movies and TV show specials, I was always so confused. Christmas just looks so magical. Yet when it rolls around we're all sitting on the tiles under the air conditioner painting like dogs that have been out on a run. It's not quite the same. Like huh? Well, the Earth is closest to the sun in the winter. That doesn't make any sense! Earth reaches a point in its orbit when it's closest to the sun in January. The cold of winter doesn't actually have to do much with the orbit, it's more to do with which direction the planet's axis is tilting. Now that explains why two halves of the world experience winter in different times of the year. The North Americans are shoveling snow and being jolly and us Aussies are. You get the idea. I would always stay up on Christmas Eve in the sweaty heat of the night puraying that a Christmas miracle would occur and I would wake up to snow outside. Yeah, kinda sad, huh? Even as a concept, snow is wild to me. If people had never seen rain in their 20-something years of life and then it suddenly poured water from the sky, they would be freaking out too. I'm confessing it. I haven't never seen snow in my lifetime. I didn't know this, but apparently snowflakes aren't always tiny and cute. They can be big boys! Back in 1887, a rantoner in Montana, USA called Matt Coleman measured a snowflake to be a whopping 38 centimeters wide and 20 centimeters thick. That is a big snowflake! Mr. Coleman went to say the snowflake was larger than milk pans. Huh, it's related to the saucepan. As much as I want the cold weather, I only want the comfortable cold weather. Sure, it's gotta be literally freezing in order for me to see snow, but I don't want it any colder than that. The temperature has gotten down to a deadening minus 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit, minus 53.6 Celsius, making it the coldest weather ever recorded in history. Well, Disney would love this weather, though. Is that too far? This extremely low temperature was recorded in 1983. Can you guess where? Yeah! Antarctica. Makes sense. I can just hear all the gym bros and morning routine guys scrambling to get there to do an ice plunge. They might want to think twice about that, though. It might be so cold that they start to feel warm. And that's when you're in real trouble. The condition notice frostbite is where the outer layers of the skin freeze, and when this happens, the tissue dies and will be shed when thawing occurs. If living tissue is frozen, it will expand slightly, in turn causing the cell walls to rupture. Ooh. That means the body part cannot be saved. Oh god, you wouldn't belong getting frostbite. When I visited the UK over winter break, I experienced picking up a sheet of ice from a puddle. I was one of these guys. Easily the coldest weather I have ever felt doesn't compare to minus 128.6 degrees, but, you know, I was shaking in my boots. Weird side note, but whenever someone mentions snow cones, all I can think about is the guy from Monster's Inc. Every time. Just like we see in his offerings, snow actually can be different colors. Most people believe that snow is white or gray after it gets dirty, but there's more to it. To be super specific, snow is actually translucent since it's made up of ice crystals. However, because of how those clear crystals reflect light, snow actually appears white to the human eye. When dust and algae make an appearance, though, it can look purple, orange and green. Pink snow, known as watermelon snow, fell in Russia in 2010. It actually had a sweet smell and taste, and I kind of want to eat some now. Yum, yum. Cough. One last snow fact, and I'll talk about something else for a bit. I promise. The snowiest city on Earth is actually in Japan. Amori City in the North have received more snowfall than any major city in the world. On average, they get hit with 26 feet of snow. That's a lot of feet. I don't have anything to add to this. I just didn't expect it. During the winter months, food for animals is sparse. Many species survive by conserving their energy through hibernation. During this process, an animal's body's temperature and heart rate drops, and their breathing rates are reduced by 50 to 100%. That is bonkers. Their bodies are too cold to produce electric currents related to dreaming, so they enter long periods of REM sleep. Dormais hold the record for the longest hibernators up to 11 months. 11 months. In fact, the name Dormouse comes from the French word dormir, meaning to sleep. When I think of hibernation, I think of that one SpongeBob episode where Sandy was in hibernation and it was the most nerve-wracking thing of my life. Animals that don't hibernate have to face the cold in different ways. Many animals migrate, such as birds and fish. On a trip to the Gold Coast recently, I went whale watching. Whales travel to warmer waters around the baby season, meaning Australia is just the right place for them. Good day, mate. I was lucky enough to see some, and they were pretty cool. I get seasick on boats, so I took a motion sickness pill to make sure I didn't throw up, but it just made me so drowsy and I almost missed everything. Ooh. Whale. Pfft. Ooh. Polar bears are actually black and their fur is actually translucent, not white at all, and only appears white because it reflects visible light, just like those snowflakes I mentioned before. I just looked up what a hairless polar bear looks like and I'm traumatized. Now back to snow because I'm obsessed. The largest snowball recorded measures 10.04 meters, 32.94 feet in circumference and was rolled by university students in Michigan, USA in 2013. Honestly, I think this is actually false. I believe the biggest snowball title belongs to the Teletubbies or even the guys in Mario Party. The spookiest thing about the season though is the dangers it can carry if it becomes too extreme. Like a blizzard. If you're stuck in the middle of a desert in direct sunlight, it could still take over a day to actually kill you, but being stuck in the wrong blizzard could finish you off in as little as 10 minutes. It's the fastest way to die in nature from weather alone. There are many pros and cons to the magical season that is winter, but as an Australian who doesn't get to experience much cold weather throughout the year, I love it for one very specific reason. Layers! But given the downsides that come with it, I'm happy for our little Earthboy to take some time off from his relationship and keep things changing.