The zombies are up and about, and people are being attacked. By the time he begins to warn the others, it is too late. Now everything is thawing out, including the zombies, and Rick knows that this is a very bad thing indeed. He clearly realizes that the reason the group didn't find any zombies roaming around is that they were all frozen. You can imagine, based on Rick's reaction and the naughty word I blacked out, how Rick feels about the warning painted on the sign. A layer of snow and ice on a sheet of plywood outside the gates begins to melt, and soon we see that it is in fact a sign: They sweep the area, find no zombies, and settle into the houses. When the group finds the walled community of Wiltshire Estates, it is extremely cold. That means that the fluid in the cells does not necessarily expand to destroy the cell on freezing.Īctually, the comics don't suggest that zombies can freeze to death. If anything, the survivable (if you want to call it that) freeze/thaw cycle argues that it forms an amorphous solid rather than crystal on freezing. We don't know the fluidic makeup of the zombie cells. It also means that the crystals formed (if any) when frozen would not be sufficient to damage the tissue. The freezing temperature is going to be sub-zero more than likely due to low water content.

But my argument was that they aren't damaged by the freezing/thawing process, as Wad pointed out happened in Wiltshire. That said, a non-canonical answer from Max Brooks seems to be that they don't need circulating blood, but the consistency of the blood changes and acts like antifreeze were poured in- it requires a significantly lower temperature to freeze solid, and when it does get cold enough, fluids in the zombie's body don't have sufficient water to expand as they freeze, and don't crystallize such that they turn into frozen strawberry mush when thawed.Įdit: Wow, okay, let me clarify my comment a little bit: Yes, they freeze, and no argument. We are literally talking about the walking dead here- the rules of biochemistry are forced to go out the window on close enough examination. Blood circulation has nothing to do with anything. Why would the winter kill the zombies from lack of circulating blood? During the rest of the year, they also don't have circulating blood. However, the zombies do slow down and potentially freeze solid. I've read the comics many times and I can't recall a single time when there is mention of the zombies dying from freezing.

Waw zombies freezing have to alttab