What the fuck is up with Wind Chill factor? It pisses me off when the news or weather service reports that it's such-and-such degrees but "with the wind chill", it's more like ten degrees colder, or whatever.
Now, I'm not a complete sprinkle genie. I get that the wind blows, and shit gets colder. But why then doesn't that change the fucking temperature? If the wind is cooling things down from 32 degrees to 27 degrees, then why isn't it just 27 degrees?
Are thermometers just fucking stupid or what?
Also, should 'wind chill' be capitalized?
-Hagop
This question is dope, Hagop. Why? Two reasons: I didn’t know the answer, and I’ve often wondered the same damn shit.
I did some research, but most of the links I came to on the web were bullshit that sounded like the authors were as unsure as I was. I asked some scientists, and most of their answers were also lacking. Finally, an astrophysicist friend of mine (that’s how I fucking roll, y’all) gave me an explanation that satisifies. Allow me to enlighten you.
First, let’s start with the idea that things can feel like one temperature, but actually be another temperature. If you’re in a cold-ass room and you touch a wooden rod with your right hand, it may feel cold, but it won’t feel nearly as cold as a steel rod in the same room. Why? Well, assuming the temperature throughout the room is constant, the reason is conductivity: the steel rod conducts the heat out of your body much faster than the wooden rod does. So, even though both rods are the same temperature, the steel rod feels colder because it conducts the heat out of your body so quickly.
Now, humans are surrounded by a thin layer of warm air that’s constantly generated by our bodies. That air insulates us from the cold outside. When the winter (AL-) wind (-LIT-) blows that warm (-ERA-) air off of us, we (-TION*, bitch) feel the cold temperature faster, or rather, we lose heat more rapidly than we would have otherwise. The weather gods, or whoever, have a formula that takes that rate of heat loss with wind and compares it to regular heat loss without wind. That is, when the temperature is 35, but it feels like 29, the formula is telling you that the wind is causing you to lose heat as if it were actually 6 degrees cooler than it truly is. Don’t get it twisted: the temperature is real. In the example above, the real temperature is above the freezing point of water (32 degrees), so water won’t freeze, even though it “feels like” 29. ”Feels like” (which is basically wind chill in the winter) is a measure of how the wind makes you lose heat faster.
Rapid heat loss caused by wind chill (or by anything else) is bad as a motherfucker. While inanimate objects can’t be brought below the actual temperature, the human body works hard to keep itself at a livable temperature, and that work can increase the risk of some nasty shit, like frostbite or hypothermia.
In hot weather, btdubs, “feels like” primarily accounts for the effect of humidity (which forces us to retain heat) on our bodies.
And finally, don’t capitalize “wind chill”. Got it?
Just slapped that shit like it was Irene on Real World: Seattle.
*Alliteration, bitch.
