Ask Mike: What’s wind chill?
Hey Guys,
It. Is. Cold. Cold, cold, cold! Virtually all of Great Britain is covered in snow and ice. Frozen iguanas are falling from the trees in Florida. And, most alarming of all, I have been forced to seriously consider buying a Snuggie. Folks in the Yahoo! Answers community are asking a lot of questions about the weather. I decided to focus on one in particular — what the heck is wind chill?
The official site for the National Weather Service features plenty of information on wind chill and what it means. According to the NWS, “wind chill is based on the rate of heat loss from exposed skin caused by wind and cold.” Wind drives heat from the body, making it feel a lot colder than it really is.
The NWS also includes an example that brings home the point. Say it’s 0 degrees Fahrenheit outside and the wind is blowing at 15 mph. According to the formula, that means it feels like -19 degrees outside. “At this wind chill temperature, exposed skin can freeze in 30 minutes.” Clearly, it can be very dangerous, especially for kids.
School districts in cold regions monitor the wind chill. If it gets too low, classes are more likely to be cancelled. For example, one district writes, “if the wind chill, according to the National Weather Service, is 35 degrees below zero or colder at 5:30 a.m. and predicted to remain that low or become worse, school may be cancelled.” School closings, eh? Perhaps that explains all the wind chill interest on Yahoo! Answers…
Thanks for reading,
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Wind Chill is the describing of fast something gets cold. The higher the wind chill the quick something will become cold. Before Christmas the weather was cold snap let me tell you. If the temperature would be – 40 degrees c the wind chill can be – 50 degrees.
If the temperature and or wind chill is cold and combining with wind chill certain outdoor activities can be reduced.
Or it can be cancelled. This is the talk about safety.
So are these record cold temperatures and disasters still proving global warming this year?
Yes Mike humidity makes a lot of difference in the wind chill factor to.
Whoa ! I didn’t know that. very informative thanks
It’s way too freezing for Miami, lol. It NEVER get’s this cold! We’re in the 30′s!
Windchill only affects living creatures. But, did you know there is a “windchill” for inanimate objects? It is called aerodynamic chill and it is what causes bridges and overpasses to freeze before the roads freeze. Any object exposed to the wind will chill down because it looses heat. However, once it freezes, it won’t get any colder until the humidity drops. When the humidity drops below about 20°F, water no longer comes out of the atmosphere and all frozen objects will continue to drop in temperature.
wind chill i think is how cold the wind is
The weather is a hawling snowstorm banlketed the whole field with while.you need egis your the leg and head.
Nice post. Can’t believe I got a snuggie for Christmas…Just what I “wanted.”
This wind chills been like typical weather in Albany, NY here, but I feel bad for the farmers in Florida sleeping like 3 hours a day just to maintain their crops.
Mike, Thanks for simplifying. “Wind Chill”, which puzzles people, would in fact be almost meaningless BUT for the fact that human and animal flesh freezes and when there is a breeze or wind sub-freezing air temps will freeze whatever it is even more quickly.
Yes, a Snuggie, a terrible fate. But better than flash-freezing or hypothermia?
I live in central Texas. Add wind and humidity and it will feel waaay colder. If the wind is blowing here and it’s in the lower 40′s, the cold cuts like a knife. Silk thermal underwear are the best thing since sliced bread. You can buy them at most outdoor sites (Eddie Bauer, REI, etc…) but Dharma Trading Co. has a set for $25.00 US dollars.
Great info on ‘official’ wind chill.
wind chill is a real test developed for the real problem of measuring the effect of cold in areas like the antarctic where sever wind adds to the effect of the cold.
simply meaning, you freeze faster if it is windy, so the actual temp could be low enough not to cause alarm, but the wind will greatly increase the effect of the cold.
here, in the civilized world where we do not get that cold or windy, it means nothing, but the weather forecasters like to hype it up for ratings. like telling people on the east coast of USA the same killer storm that dumped 6′ in the rocky mountains is coming their way, even though they know it will be a week and probably be rain by the time it arrives.
or the guy standing in the wind tunnel to show you how you will die when the the tornado hits.
or talking about global climate change when they look at historical data and see it is just a normal cycle.
and acid rain was suppose to have killed us all by now, where did it go?
theatrics.
We get lots of this in Chicago. Schools get closed for dangerous wind chills way more often then they do for snow storms.
I’ve heard that the wind chill is created when the wind removes the layer of non-moving insulating air that is usually next to your skin. When this layer is gone, there’s a corresponding lack of insulation and the cold affects the skin.
Covering the exposed skin protects this layer of stagnant air.
yes it is cold and the wind shled is lower
Is that how it works? around here if it is -40 (which is both in celsius and farenheight) or lower, then classes are cancelled no matter what. The coldest I have seen in moncton is about -37 celsius, -51 with wind chill so as you can imagine it gets pretty cold up here, in july I have seen smog alert and temperatures going over 35 celcius( about 90-95 farenheight) so we get a lot of extremes when it comes to the weather