On Sun, 4 Feb 2018 11:57:01 -0800 (PST), RichA
wrote:

And why not? Cold weather kills about 3 million people a year world-wide, about 150,000 people alone in the U.S. and 50,000 in Britain, despite them being a 1st world countries. Flu outbreaks, all of it is worse. I've observed for 3 hours in -20 deg temps sometimes, but I can't say it's a good idea. Problem is, skies are better in winter owing to less water vapour being in the air. Nighttime lasts twice as long too. Observing from a backyard is easy, but often dark-sky sites are hampered (or closed) by snow in northern or mid-western areas.

Cold weather reduces the chances of getting a cold or the flu. It
looks like the annual rate of hypothermia related deaths in the U.S.
is under 1500 per year. What kind of deaths does your 150,000 number
reflect?

Here in Colorado, the transparency is often better in the winter, but
the seeing is usually worse. So when I observe depends in part on what
I'm looking at.