outdoor
What is Wind Chill?
Filed in archive by Beverly Durfee on October 7, 2006
What is Wind Chill?
Wikipedia says:
Wind chill is the apparent temperature felt on exposed skin due to the combination of air temperature and wind speed. Except at higher temperatures, where wind chill is considered less important, the wind chill temperature (often called the "wind chill factor" by laymen) is always lower than the air temperature, because any wind increases the rate at which moisture evaporates from the skin and carries heat away from the body.

In other words, wind chill accounts for loss of heat when warm air around a body is replaced with colder air. The factor is an indication of the effect of the combination of air temperature and wind speed on human comfort and safety.
If you take to the outdoors for recreation, knowing how to calculate the wind chill factor is vital. It can help you prevent hypothermia, frostbite - even death - especially at high altitudes, in cold weather climates (northern North America for one) and on large bodies of water.

The formula for calculation is:
WC = 35.74 + 0.6215 TF + ( 0.4275 TF - 35.75) V 0.16

Where WC is the wind chill index, V is in the wind speed in statute miles per hour, and TF is the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.

If you find your brain overheating just trying to work that out, you can always visit the US National Weather Service's Windchill Temperature Index Chart.

Related Entries:

Permalink: What is Wind Chill?
Tags: winter  safety  outdoors  survival  wind  chill  outdoor  wind+chill 
Trackback: http://publish.creative-weblogging.com/publish/mt-tb.pl/38520
img Addthis img Ask img Blinklist img del.icio.us img Digg img Fark img Facebook img Google img Lycos img Ma.gnolia Add this page to Mister Wong Mr Wong img Netscape img Netvousz img Newsvine img Reddit img StumbleUpon img Slashdot img Tailrank img Technorati img Wink img Yahoo

Vote for What is Wind Chill?:

  • Currently 9.50/10
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
Rating: 9.50 out of 2 vote(s) cast.
Subscribe
Share It
RSSrss
See all blog subscribe options
Google google
What is RSS?
Yahoo! yahoo
Addthis Subscribe using any feed reader!
Bloglines Bloglines
Newsletter

TwitterFollow us on Twitter!