Winter is finally rearing its freezing head, with predicted lows in the single digits later this week, which can lead to dangerous health conditions if you’re not prepared.

The two dangers from cold exposure to be familiar with are frostbite and hypothermia. Adair and Guthrie County Emergency Management Coordinator Bob Kempf says frostbite causes a loss of feeling and color around the face, fingers, and toes, “What frostbite is, is it’s the moisture within your skin that’s actually freezing that causes the frostbite. If frostbite gets very serious, you get that white waxy look to your fingers or your ears. You don’t want to rub them a whole lot because when the moisture in your skin is frozen that actually causes damage to your skin. So you want to put them in some lukewarm water, cover them up, hold them, try and conserve that body heat. Put your fingers underneath your arms, things like that so that you’re basically slowly rewarming those things.”

Kempf explains that hypothermia is an unusually low body temperature, and one below 95 degrees is considered an emergency. The signs of hypothermia are shivering, exhaustion, confusion, fumbling hands, memory loss, slurred speech, or drowsiness. When this occurs Kempf urges people to go to a warm room and warm the center of the body first. This includes keeping dry and wrapping up in warm blankets, including the head and neck.