Winter is the odd season when the mere act of stepping outside can cause pain; it is also, often, void of smell. And it’s a time of death. Extreme heat may make for more dramatic photographs and garner bigger headlines but—in the developed world—cold is a bigger killer. (In fact, a far bigger killer: one U.K. study calculated that cold killed 100 times as many people as heat.)

So during these first weeks of hard winter, we begin to see the occasional slideshow and story on the ways that winter can hurt you. And the information is just as bleak and morbidly fascinating as you’d expect.

To wit: About 25 percent of the deaths in the winter season are from people caught outside in a storm. This seems like the sort of death you’d encounter in 19th century North Dakota, when people would get disoriented trying to make it from the house to the barn in a blizzard, and be found months later, when the snow melted, huddled behind the chicken coup. Today it seems shocking and grim.

Also grim and shocking: an estimated 20 percent of present-day exposure-related winter deaths occur inside the home. This means people freeze to death on their couches because the heat’s gone out. To put this in context: we have phones that can respond verbally to your verbal request for the nearest location to buy a pumpkin latte, and people are still freezing to death indoors.

Winter is particularly tough on the olds, especially the guys: half of the people who die from cold are over 60 years old and 75 percent are male. Among other deleterious effects, cold increases the chances of blood clotting, which can cause heart attacks and strokes. So, statistically speaking, putting a snow shovel in the hands of an old man is roughly the same as tossing him into a viper pit. Also, old guys are stunningly cavalier about driving on ice and snow, which are treacherous surfaces on which to pilot a vehicle going 60 m.p.h. And, of course, being indoors in winter exposes you to respiratory diseases (flu!), and the winter strains of these maladies are usually more severe than those that infect us at other times of the year.

The takeaway: to avoid the flu, go outside a lot. But don’t be shoveling snow, because that stuff is a killer. It is much, much safer to glide on top of it instead.

Photo of snow-covered headstones in the graveyard of Wisbech St. Mary church, by Richard Humphrey, via Wikimedia Commons.