Do you ever walk out the door when it's 40 degrees out, feel a 5 mph breeze and think "Man, it feels like it's 36 degrees today." NO! Because noone cares at that temperature. Even if the wind is whisking by at 60 mph, the windchill factor is still only 25 degrees. You'd be more concerned about how a tropical storm got to the Upper Midwest in the middle of January than how cold it feels like outside. It's even more meaningless when you get further down the scale. Can any of us really tell the difference between -10 degrees and -28?
But that's what gets the fonking headlines. A negative -10 degree temperature is bad. You wouldn't want to be standing around outside for too long when the mercury drops that low. But add a 10 mph wind and suddenly IT'S -28 WINDCHILL!!! THAT SOUNDS ALMOST THREE TIMES WORSE!!! CAN YOU FONKING BELIEVE WE LIVE SOMEWHERE IT "FEELS" LIKE -28 DEGREES OUT?!?!?
Take a step back for just a second. This is the methodology of how you determine wind chill. Wind chill is the heat transfer on a bare face walking into the wind at 3 mph. Sooo basically you can mitigate the effects of wind chill by not having exposed skin and/or not standing in the wind. Either this strikes you as common sense or you're a fool.
Here's what wind chill is expressing. Your body radiates heat. That heat stays close to your body as the energy required to diffuse with the air around you is quickly exhausted. The wind comes along to blow that heat away from your body. When it does, the air surrounding you is made colder. So instead of being 5 degrees mitigated by this layer of heat near your skin, it is 5 degrees next to your skin. (Ludo, how are my physics?)
So what you can do is trap this warm air near your skin. If the wind can't blow it away, then it will continue to shield you from the cold. You can either wear layers or a hat or a scarf or a less permeable jacket. Sounds like something Mom told you years ago, right?
Wind chill is, at best, a factor of inconvenience and discomfort. Wind chill won't make your car harder to start in the morning (your car doesn't naturally radiate heat) or cause frostbite (the cold itself has that locked down). It just means you may need to plan better about what you wear and how much exposure you get to the elements.
It's true. It is it's cold outside. It's January and we live in the middle of the continent north of the 40th parallel. So stay inside and while you're at it invite me over. I'll brave the cold because I'm well-prepared and don't believe in the windchill.
P.S. For those of you who care, here's the formula for calculating wind chill.
where Twc (wind chill) and Ta (actual temp) are measured in °F, and V (wind velocity) in mph.
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