Literal translation
It's a cold that skins you.
Meaning
it's a freezing, biting cold
Explanation
This expression describes a cold so sharp it seems to act physically on the skin, as though skinning or peeling it. Pelo, from the verb pela, to peel or to skin, a direct cognate of the French peler, pictures the burning, stinging sensation extreme cold causes on exposed faces and hands. The expression thus corresponds almost literally to its French equivalent, sharing both the image and the construction, with que introducing the consequence and the relative clause that skins qualifying the cold described. This kind of turn of phrase, where cold is personified through an aggressive action on the body, belongs to a broader set of Provençal and French expressions that render the intensity of a weather phenomenon tangible through its direct physical effects, more than through an abstract degree. It is said in ordinary register, in everyday conversation about the weather, usually accompanied by a gesture or grimace underlining the discomfort felt.