What is the wind-chill factor?
The wind chill or wind chill factor is the apparent temperature felt by warm blooded creatures – primarily humans – during cold and windy conditions. However, many factors contribute to the degree of discomfort experienced by human beings, including cold windy conditions, insulation, humidity, the quality and amount of clothing worn, body temperature, physical fitness, metabolic rate and psychological condition of the subject.
In practical weather terms, there is an actual air temperature and a “feels like” temperature. Television meteorologists often provide both numbers during especially hot summer days or cold winter days. In the summertime, the “feels like” temperature is called the heat index, but during the winter, the “feels like” temperature is often called the wind chill factor. The wind chill factor is a combination of air temperature and wind speed that affects the freezing rate of exposed skin. A quick demonstration of the effects of wind chill can be performed at your desk right now. Simply blow a fast stream of air across your exposed forearm or hand. The area receiving the fast-moving air should feel noticeably cooler than the rest of your arm. This is the wind chill effect. When the accelerated air from your mouth moved across your exposed skin, the normal evaporation rate was temporarily raised. The heat radiating from your arm was also affected by the change in wind speed. The actual wind c
In the above table an addition term is introduced: the Wind Chill Factor. Wind Chill Factor is a more scientific term for ‘wind chill’ and is expressed in watts per square meter. It is the total conductive heat flux from a heated surface exposed to a cold wind. Typically 33°C is chosen as the temperature of the heated surface as it reasonably representative of the human skin temperature in the cold. As a matter of interest, the human body generates 150 – 500 watts of heat, depending on exertion levels. The Wind Chill Factor is a useful measure, as it may be used in conjunction with other mechanism of heat loss or gain to yield a net effect.
In cold weather, low temperatures cause the body to lose heat. But the wind also takes heat from the body, so a temperature reading doesn’t always tell us how cold it really feels. The wind chill factor was devised by weathermen to show how the temperature and the wind combine to produce the feeling of cold on the human body. Ac
