The engineers did not expect that to happen.
I’ve seen snow falling outside the 40th floor of a skyscraper in Melbourne Australia, on one of our coldest winter days, but it didn’t hit the ground. It wasn’t unheard of - others who’d worked there longer say it happened every couple of years. It’s frickin COLD up there.
Years ago I worked on 45 at Rialto. Totally different weather system up there.
Watching the water level in my glass n my desk sway gently side to side on windy days was something.
Yeah! Fun to be up there in storms. This was the old AMP building (not sure if it’s still called that) - I worked on a few floors, even got to visit the roof a couple of times. I hear most companies have moved out of it to newer buildings now and I’m not surprised lmao
Typical temperature drops is maybe about 1 C per 100m
1 floor is maybe about 8-10m.
40 floors is maybe a 4 Celsius drop from ground floor.
Edit: I brain farted on the units and for some reason wrote meters because I was thinking in European units.
8 to 10 METERS‽ 26 TO 36 feet per floor? That's insane! B.C. is really slacking on the floor height
The new One World Trade Center is 110 floors and 541m excluding the tip.
That’s an average of 4.9m per floor
Owing to numerous architectural features the average floor height is maybe a bit less than that. Call it a day at 4m
User deleted comment
21d
Thank you for the more detailed info, I did realise 4.9m seemed a bit too high but just very lazily googled the OWTC as a reference and used it to show the average would be significantly lower than what that other person was suggesting
On big buildings, there are hollow spaces between what we use as floors. These spaces are used for plumbering, wiring, ventilations, steel beams, concrete beams, insulation, anti-fire materials, etc. and they are not small, we have to access them for maintenance.
Yes but there is no building that averages 8 metres per floor.
A high ceiling will be about 3m (usually a bit less), you leave something like 60cm for plumbing and wiring, and then you add another 60cm for structure. There will be places where the structure is thicker than than but you can typically arrange your beams and your plumbing in such a was as they don't interfere much, which allows you to use some of the height reserved for infrastructure for your structure. So a standard floor-to-floor distance is usually about 4m. The ground floor is often double-height to make it seem impressive and the penthouses typically have higher ceilings too.
The more luxurious a building is, the higher these numbers will be, but 5m between floors should cover even the most luxurious, complex building.
One floor is 8-10 meters? That seems like a lot
It is. Normal floor height is about 14ft/4.3m
My brain farted and I was thinking 10 ft and then put in the wrong unit.
you might wanna edit your comment then chief
Maybe the commenter is Dutch? If so, that sounds about right.
On our coldest days, the lowest temp (at ground level) is probably 0, maybe -1 max - so that tracks. Cold enough to be snow in the air but a difference of a few degrees mean it’s melted by ground level. It didn’t seem weird, just unusual because we don’t get snow in the city here. (Occasionally - like VERY occasionally - in the regions, but basically never in the city.)
Fair. Just didn't want people to think "Melbourne so like 30 C?" - because honestly that's where my mind goes when I think Australia (even in the winter), mainly due to lack of experience.
Same thing with the building in OP. Parts of China apparently hit -40 (C or F, same difference), although I couldn't figure out what Shanghai was.
Amusingly in 2021 there was a heatwave in Shanghai apparently in February.
40+ in summer isn’t rare at all, so you’re on the right track! I think people forget Australia is about the same size physically as the continental USA, so there’s a whole range of temperature options. Melbourne is closer to Antarctica than to certain other Australian cities so it gets chilly there. We also get weird weather in summer sometimes - freezing cold snaps, hailstorms on Christmas Day - actually who am I kidding? We get weird weather all the time and it’s one of my favourite things. Standing outside during the famous cool change and feeling the temperature go from 44 to 24 Celsius in the space of five minutes is wild.
Melbourne is closer to antartica than it is to Darwin in the north of Australia. That isn't some commentary on social status. It's a geographic fact based on measurement.
China sits a latitude similar to the US. It wears Russia as a hat..
The standard temperature lapse rate is 1.98C per 1000 feet.
A floor is about 10 feet (as you tried to say), so your 40 story building is about 400', and the air would only be around a degree cooler than ground level on average.
Obviously this isn't hard and fast, but it is the international average/standard.
It’s 1C for 1000ft. Yes I’m mixing units. Look up the standard lapse rate.
The standard environmental Lapse rate is 1.98C/1000'.
1C per 100m sounds about right! I noticed out here in SoCal when I’d cycle up into elevation from sea level i could expect about 5F drop per 1500’ increase in elevation
You can watch high-altitude rain and snow from the ground, if temperature/pressure and cloud-cover permits.
https://www.weather.gov/arx/why_fallstreaks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virga
This is not that, but it looked trippy and is sorta in theme.. so enjoy!
A few years ago, I heard someone said, it's raining men. pretty sure they never reach the ground too.
I like how the video had to add a caption specifically for the F since everyone else uses C.
And still got it wrong. 5 degrees C is above freezing and wouldn't cause this. Even -5 might not cause this.
23f is -5 degrees C though
So they forgot the minus sign then lol
Probably on purpose to drive more engagement through people correcting them.
This is the rhigt anser.
(plz engage)
Fuckin' public education these days.
It's "wright ansar".
you mean "its the wright ansar".
Yeah they forgot the units. Lol
Fun fact, it is possible to freeze water at 5 degrees Celsius! you just need to pressure it up to nearly 10.000x the atmospheric pressure!
let me get my 10000x pressure cooker like its a gacha game.
huh. at these heights wouldn't the pressure be less and actually drive the temp required down? Would it be noticeable at these heights?
It's obviously a conversion error, but you can get ice at 5° C air temperature a number of ways:
Structures, especially metallic ones, being colder than the outside air temperature if it was colder earlier (this most often happens during the night).
Supercooled moisture or precipitation (e.g. freezing rain, freezing drizzle, freezing fog).
My car gives me a warning whenever the outside air temperature drops to 4° C for these reasons.
it looks like the F are actually correct and the C temps are wrong.
23F is -5C (just did the convo cuz I was confused how you get ice at 5C )
and yet they still fucked up the conversion
User deleted comment
21d
Taipei 101 is worth paying for the ticket to go up if you get a chance to visit, especially at dusk and into the night.
Can confirm, have been up twice and it was much better at night
Happens sometimes at the Empire State Building too, super neat
What in the Minecraft chunks
i use to live in the hill towns when it rained in the valley it snowed in the hills.
Did they go outside to make snow angels?
To add context, while Taipie is ultra humid like Florida, they rarely have snow. It is like 1 out of 10 years experience on the tallest mountain in Taipei. So, seeing snow is like American getting an Earthquake.
A few years back, people in the upper floors of Taipei 101 saw snow falling, but it never reached the ground.
The fact that the video was in Shanghai threw me a loop. But Taipei? Holy moly.
That’s what the people in 101 said.
I swear I saw snow falling from the 20th floor when I lived in Singapore. I was a child but I swear I saw it.
High humidity and a low temperature.
Altitude, and wind contribute too. The actual temperature up there is probably a lot colder than -5C.
Ohhh, it was supposed to be -5! I kept trying to figure out how in the world ice accumulates like that at 5c lol
same. got so confused. but yeah 23f is -5c
Wind doesn't make things colder. You can test this by looking at a thermometer and then having a fan blow air on it. The temps will not go down.
What wind does do during freezing temps, is it removes the outermost layer of air around you, which your radiation has ever so slightly made warmer than the actual temperature, and when that's removed your skin is in contact with the actual ambient temperatures.
You can actually experience the opposite in a sauna. Because the air around you is significantly warmer than you, you actually create a layer of cold air next to your skin. Blowing onto your skin removes it and thus it actually feels hotter, not colder.
Yep. And thank you for mentioning sauna, I'll go turn mine on and go enjoy some sauna time.
No one really needed that extra bit of info, but go off queen.
Works in reverse as well. A great way to quickly thaw some frozen food is put it in front of a fan.
Convection bake cooks things faster too
Indeed. An air fryer is just a mini high velocity convection oven.
Which ever fool chose the term “Air fryer” over “HIGH VELOCITY OVEN!” needs a dam good thrashing.
Presenting the latest High Velocity Oven: the firenado 4000
That would sell. It really would.
Wind also can speed up evaporation which cools things down. It's why we sweat, the sweat evaporating is what cools us down. If you're sweaty in front of a fan, you cool down way faster.
So, yeah, wind doesn't directly cool things. But it is involved in a few processes that help cool things down.
Wind also can speed up evaporation which cools things down.
Cold slows down evaporation and completely stops it at freezing temps.
Your convection makes the air touching your skin slightly warmer, your radiation makes any surfaces that have line of sight to you that are colder than you slightly warmer.
Ah, right. That's it.
To be fair, we refer to convectors as “radiators” for some godforsaken reason so it’s quite a natural mistake to make!
Yeah. But the dummy version is that your body creates heat and there are a bunch of phenomena that transfer that heat to the air around you. Someone smarter than me would probably use "conduction" somewhere in their explanation as well.
if we're talking bare skin on air then there is no conduction, but conduction is why metal feels super hot/cold while a piece of paper the same temperature does not!
While forced convection vs natural convection is the major effect on heat loss rate it's not the only phenomenon to come at play.
Read about wet bulb temperature. Heat loss via mass loss (by evaporation).
If there was a very cold, very dry air front suddenly hitting the building after it accumilated humidity in past days it would exhibit enhanced cooling and can go below the ambient of -5°C.
If you want to experience it yourself just take a wet cotton pad and wrap it around a regular thermometer, now take another one and blow on both with your fan just as you suggested, held side by side.
At the building this would obviously be limited to until all the water freezes, but I suspect that a lot of water was trapped in absorbing surfaces such as concrete and the freezing squeezed it out relatively slowly
How does wind make it colder? What?
No, it would make it the temp change faster and make it feel way colder on your skin though, but unless the tower was radiating heat it probably wouldn’t change anything.
It dew be like that
You would think air conditioning would take away most of the moisture. Maybe something broke. Or a window was left open.
That's the outside of the building.
people have mentioned already without explaining, but that is "outside". the tops of pretty much every commercial building are walls that hide all the ugly bits like air conditioning, ventilation, and other necessary equipment. In tall buildings, window washing equipment also.
Im not familiar with this particular building, but the actual roof is probably around here and behind the wall is where this video is being taken.
There are two rows of vertical louvers above the balconies. The large rectangles you can see on the exterior. Those are openings to allow air in and out of the mechanical penthouse shown in the video.
How'd you fix the icing problem?
Icing problem?
You fix it by going in a cave, with a box of scraps.
I scrolled hoping someone was gonna say it
Is it a problem?
Only if you don’t have a sled
How did it freeze that much at 5c ??? That’s too warm for ice.
It's supposed to -5 look at the Fahrenheit conversion, it said 23° which is -5°C
Its kind of sad that the first thought of my social media-addled brain was that they intentionally included the wrong numbers in the video to get people commenting about it and boost engagement.
And here we are
That shit pisses me off so bad
That's exactly what happened, you're not being paranoid
What is this called? I thought it might be engagement bait but apparently that's just asking for likes/follows/comments.
enragement
There isn't really a term for it specifically, it's a form of engagement bait . Asking for comments or likes isn't "bait" as it's not deceptive.
Aha…cheers
The caption must have forgot the, " - " before the 5. They state 23°F in parentheses which is -5°C
Cheers
This reminds of that "The Day after" movie (sorry if i didn't get the name as i don't fluently speak, i mean that film when the New York gets frozen and there's Jake Gyllenhaal).
The day after tomorrow
A guilty pleasure of mine and one of my favorite disaster movies.
My favorite part is when Global warming chases them like a slasher villain or the 'nothing' from neverending story.
Such glorious schlock.
Ten year old me thought that this was the mature, sophisticated movie that only intellectual adults could enjoy. The ice chasing after the main cast was explained by science in the movie so it's actually a true phenomenon.
I'm glad I'm not the only kid who thought this was an intellectual movie at the time
I also felt smart 🥹😂
At least it’s not The Happening
Acting and directing are important. The Mist also could have been horrible without those components.
Same. I saw it for the first time last year, and now I've watched it probably another 6 or 7 times.
"Upper Manhattan is virtually In-ex-sessible."
The science teachers rolling that movie out every other week
I remember reading the book in preparation for the movie. The plot line of blood oaths, modern day witches, a President in hiding, and Hitlers head made me think it was gonna be one hell of a movie.
The movie was nothing like this. I was very confused when I walked out of the theater. Turns out there's a book with the same title bearing no relation to this movie at all.
I’m so glad that somebody else has read that book. Because I definitely picked it up, thinking it was something like the movie, and man was I in for a surprise.
They really should have called the movie "Overmorrow". Perhaps would have brought back that archaic yet highly useful term.
New York gets frozen and theres Jake Gyllenhaal is actually a fantastic summary lol
"The Day After" was a nuclear war movie in the 1980s
"The Day After Tomorrow" was the deep freeze
The Day After Overmorrow completes the thrilling trilogy
The Day Before The Day After is the prequel the studio already has lined up.
Very important distinction that I failed to make when I was 8. Boy oh boy that explosion scene freaked me out back then (and still a bit today)
It freaked Reagan out so you are not alone. And even the TAAS Soviet News service explicitly disavowed any plans to nuke Kansas City.
For it me it was all the people dying of radiation poisoning. That movie left a scar.
when the New York gets frozen
A bit more than New York...
That’s the one where they’re running away from the approaching killer cold wave, then slam a door shut to stop it.
I never thought Hollywood would outdo themselves after having a chase scene from Mother Nature (ice in Day After). But those crazy sons of bitches did it with a chase scene against… the wind (in the Happening).
Also, Day After is just so ridiculous I can’t help but enjoy it. Think of all the times in movies where someone yells out “I’m a doctor!” or something similar just at the right moment to either take action or explain what’s going on.
In Day After? “My dad’s a climatologist!”
I watch that movie most winters to get into the groove of it.
I think cause its a high rise, it reminded me of that one Poltergeist movie.
It’s all a publicity stunt for the new Ghostbusters movie Frozen Empire.
These advertising agencies are really trying to outdo one another. First they start the Canadian forest fires to promote Diablo 4 and now this
I thought those movies didn't do well in China because Chinese movie goers don't like ghosts.
what? chinese have tons of stories about ghosts and zombies.
CCP has no shortage of fault and valid criticisms against it but a lot of people on this site tend to just believe anything. One of the most popular chinese games, in an official cultural program thing with the government is full of ghost. It even has a playable zombie.
But they DO like GhostBUSTERS!
Shanghai surprise.
Sounds like a shitty fake urban dictionary entry
I get the outside but how did it freeze on the inside? Did they not install heating inside?
I think this part is the open balcony. They probably just have to close the balcony part for a week then put a fix in for the root cause. This isn't the only unique skyscraper design that had an unexpected flaw. The Denver cash register, the London Walkie Talkie... Both were eventually fixed at some expense.
The Gherkin in London focusing the sunlight down to the street and melting cars...
Common problem. A hotel in Vegas was causing major and rapid suburns, until the cabanas burned and the hotel had the building facade and pool area redone.
No the person you replied to had it right, it was the walkie talkie that was focusing sunlight. The gherkin is just ugly and impractical
Got me trying to imagine a concave gherkin...
It's not, that area isn't open to the public and is outside. Shanghai Tower has a 118th floor observation level, but it's all inside. This is just a partially exposed area of the top where a lot of maintenance equipment, wind turbines, and earthquake dampener is. This photo gives a better perspective on where the video was taken.
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/24/64/a5/2464a59e92cb66b970f2ccebe2a1b515.jpg
I used to work at a different skyscraper nearby. There is a lot of stuff at the top like water tanks, air conditioners, window cleaning machines, etc... They normal build the facade of the building around that stuff to make the building look nice, but it's basically outdoors.
John Hancock in Boston became known as the plywood palace because of how often windows would pop out
I don't think it's finished
Shanghai Tower has been open nearly a decade.
The video is from an open-air part at the top which has building maintence stuff. Photos here. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/paid-content-5-green-towers-inspired-by-nature-and-striving-to-protect-it
The 120-degree-spiraling façade offsets strong winds in the typhoon-prone climate, while a pair of glazed curtain walls provides extra insulation, natural ventilation, and natural light. In addition, the building generates power from 270 wind turbines and uses recycled rainwater for its air-conditioning systems. All in all, the structure uses 21 percent less energy and 52 percent less water than comparable towers.
That is a cool design and very green.
The Culprit
23°F = -5°C not 5°C
Half-life 3.
Looks like an old mobile phone.
Tony did warn against the freezing problem.
Gotta admit though...the Chinese built things FAST.
It’s easy when you don’t have to worry about things like safety regulations.
That building, Shanghai Tower, actually had delays because there weren't fire safety regulations in place for buildings that tall. Companies couldn't move into their office space until they developed new fire safety regulations for super-tall buildings.
Local papers reported back then that the Shanghai Tower was supposed to open in mid-2015, but its size and complexity caused delays in clearing fire-safety regulations.
Bloomberg also noted that owners of the building didn’t allow tenants to move in to fill its prime office space until the very end of last year, after it finally won fire-safety approval.
https://asiatimes.com/2018/10/risks-remain-months-after-chinas-tallest-skyscraper-passed-fire-safety-inspection/
Why bring logic when racism is enough for some upvotes
the same people would upvote comments about how we need the government to fix Americas failing infrastructure
It’s not racist to point out that china suffers from corruption around building standards
Yea unlike america, where our infrastructure is in great condition and well funded!
It always amazes how casually racist reddit is when it's about anything outside of the U.S
User deleted comment
21d
Hit em with the old reality
'reality' = made-up things people believe just because they're anti-china
good ol chinese stereotypes
Racism.
They really raise you yanks as propaganda sponges don’t they? Any strong opinions on socialism or public transport by any chance?
Probably too fast ... which recently led to the largest real estate collapse in human history with hundreds of thousands of apartments and entire sections of cities left vacant, most of which were never even finished. Giant real estate developers like Evergrande, once the world's largest, and Country Garden went bankrupt in the last 12 months with hundreds of billions in debt and are being liquidated. In total, about 1,300 Chinese real estate developers filed for bankruptcy since 2020.
User deleted comment
21d
Country loses resources, tons of people out of jobs, tons of families losing wealth as the homes they bought are worth a fraction of what they paid. Yep, I can see why people would be "okay" with that.
Humidity and cold weather are a very rare combination in shanghai, but this should be expected more and more as climate change makes rare events more common
5с isn't even that cold wtf. By the look of this I'd say it was like -30/-40. How does ice even form at 5c?
It doesn’t. -5C
Speedman- "Somebody left the fridge open"
Here we go again.. again.
Well that's slightly terrifying, imagine a chunk of ice breaking off in the wind and bonking someone.
Wonder how that load affected the building
Building that high was just stupid in the first place….this ain’t fortnite
Skyscrapers are the rollercoasters of the urban world. They all try to outdo each other and become the world's tallest, set records, etc. That's all part of the fun and excitement of living in the city! 🥳🥳
Tower is 2073' (632m) tall. Moving from ground floor to the top floor could be a difference of ~20deg F just by altitude alone.
The top froze off. Not very typical
5 degrees Celsius being 23 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm not sure the math is adding up.
5c is above freezing and isn't equal to 23f.
*-5°c
It's -5C BTW, which IS 23F.
And yes, it's also an engineering fail.
5 degrees C is not 23F…
Frost outside in cold temps is amazing?
This sub was never great but this is pathetic.
BRB uploading my video: "rare unexpected video scientists are baffled as dry leaves transform into fire!"
What happens when it melts? Is the building ruined?
You can still use it for soup.
Buildings are designed to survive freezing temperatures.
hot/cold cycling wears away every material, if they didnt plan for it to freeze they probably didnt plan for heat/cooling cycles of this magnitude.
Hopefully they built for large enough margin of error, else this thing is gonna require a lot more maintenance a lot faster than expected.
Nah the title is made up, the building will be fine. All that water will just run down the gutters like normal
A few years back, people in the upper floors of Taipei 101 saw snow falling, but it never reached the ground.