In South Dakota, is the Heat or Cold more Miserable?

Everyone is different when it comes to what temperatures they prefer.

My wife would be perfectly happy with leaving the air conditioning set at 82 in the summer while I would rather leave it 10 degrees cooler. Meanwhile, as the thermostat in the upstairs of our house tries to regulate the temperature, our basement usually ends up cold in the winter and colder in the summer.

MORE: What To Do If You See A Dog In A Hot Car in South Dakota?

Get our free mobile app

What is more miserable to endure, hot or cold weather?

I thought of this after a casual conversation with a stranger at the gym today. Extreme heat and cold both suck a lot, but which one is more miserable?

I prefer summer to winter merely because most of my favorite activities happen then. While only hunting and occasional skiing happen when it's cold. But summer is far more miserable for me to endure.

The cold never made me sick, it just made me cold. In June of 2019, I went to a pistol match near Omaha the temperature was between 92 and 97 all day and the humidity was exceptionally high. Hydration was a chore that had to be strictly adhered to or it got dangerous quickly.

I have sat out in sub-zero wind chills while deer hunting and been perfectly comfortable given the proper gear. The only thing that makes extreme heat tolerable is going to indoor air conditioning.

But I Googled for the answer to this question, figuring someone had done a study, and they have. In a Washington Post article from 2016, a study was done to find what the level of people's happiness was relative to the temperature outside.

It really wasn't even close. Once the temp gets over 72.5 degrees, what the study set as the perfect temp that most people are happy at, virtually no one was as happy as they were at 72.5. However going down to as low as 30 degrees, lots of people were actually happier than they were at the comfortable temps.

The answers at the lower temps varied more widely than those at higher temps where most people agreed it sucked.