Originally Posted by
rumrunn6
question for the scientists ... does windchill affect / aid surface freezing?
went for a ride Saturday at 31 degrees but it was very windy w/gusts over 20 mph. went thru a puddle & my mudflap wound up freezing solid in a funny reverse crescent shape. don't recall that ever happening before
The Toad is mostly correct, and that's the simple answer. The actual answer based on thermodynamics? It's more complicated than that.
Since windchill is mostly based on our
perception of cold, or more accurately, on the
rate of heat loss, it's not really accurate to apply the term 'windchill' to anything other than the human body.
What we feel as cold is due to the rate of heat loss to the environment. When a wind chill chart says that at 45F, with 10 mph wind, the windchill is 38F (just pulling numbers, I didn't check the chart). What that means is that 45F with 10mph wind is about the same feel (rate of heat loss) as 38F with no wind.
All these are based on the different modes of heat transport noted above in
my post above, which are largely dependent on the temperature
difference between the human body and the environment.
There's a fun experiment (pretty sure there's a video on youtube) that you can do. Go outside when the temps are in the low single digits with a cool glass of water and throw it up in the air. It will come down as mostly water and freeze. Do the same thing with a glass of hot water, and most of it will not even make it to the ground.
