DES MOINES, Iowa — Just how cold is it outside in Iowa?
Well ... frigid enough to freeze your pants: Literally.
The trend of freezing a pair of jeans outdoors during bitter cold spells isn't new, as the popular experiment has cropped up on social media numerous times in recent years.
However, with another brutally-cold morning recorded in Des Moines Monday, Local 5 Meteorologist Brandon Lawrence decided to give the frozen pants activity a try.
Here is how it works:
- Take a pair of blue jeans and soak them entirely with water.
- Bring them outdoors and hang them, either on a clothesline or a fence, for instance.
- Wait: The jeans will freeze in just a short period of time.
In the Monday morning experiment, the pants became entirely frozen in less than an hour.
During the activity, the temperature at Local 5's West Des Moines studios hovered right around 0° with a wind chill near -12°. Light snow was also falling at the time.
The idea to give the experiment a whirl during this extended period of cold temperatures stemmed from a Twitter post shared by the National Weather Service in Duluth, Minnesota over the weekend.
Perhaps the most amazing part of the frozen jeans is the fact they'll stand on their own in the snow, without any assistance whatsoever.
Of course, the colder it is outside, the faster the pants will freeze.
This goofy activity is something fun to do at home as the winter blues wreak havoc on Iowa throughout the next few days.
