Originally Posted by
Hypno Toad
So many good points, and with Bob Collins' wonderful wit. Bob retired a few years ago and I really miss him on the radio!
So why do weatherpeople work so hard to make it sound even worse by citing the wind chill factor, which is rooted in (some say, “lame”) science, not human understanding, and serves no real purpose for understanding unless you intend to go outside naked next week?
What most weatherpeople don’t tell you is the wind chill factor “assumes that your exposed face is roughly five feet off the ground, it’s night, and you’re walking directly into the wind in an open field at a clip of about 3 mph,” according to Mental Floss.
The wind chill is irrelevant to almost everything else. It doesn’t affect your car in any way. It doesn’t affect your feet or any other body part — that is to say: almost all of your body — if you have the kind of clothing that people put on when it’s -20 anyway.
https://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/20...cold-shoulder/
Thinking about it, the title of this thread should be:
Weekly Wedge Issue: Wind Chill is Pointless (and just HTFU) 
More lazy journalism. From
NOAA
The NWS Wind Chill Temperature index uses advances in science, technology, and computer modeling to provide an accurate, understandable, and useful formula for calculating the dangers from winter winds and freezing temperatures. In early summer of 2001, Human trials were conducted at the Defense and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine in Toronto, Canada. The trial results were used to improve the accuracy of the new formula and determine frostbite threshold values. During the human trials, twelve volunteers (six men and six women) were placed in a chilled wind tunnel and thermal transducers were stuck to their faces to measure heat flow from the cheeks, forehead, nose and chin while walking 3 mph on a treadmill. Each Volunteer participated in four trials of 90 minutes each and was exposed to varying wind speeds and temperatures. The new wind chill index is now being used in Canada and the United States.
Further, another
page gives the parameters of the measurement
The NWS Wind Chill Temperature (WCT) index uses advances in science, technology, and computer modeling to provide an accurate, understandable, and useful formula for calculating the dangers from winter winds and freezing temperatures. The index does the following:
- Calculates wind speed at an average height of 5 feet, the typical height of an adult human face, based on readings from the national standard height of 33 feet, which is the typical height of an anemometer
- Is based on a human face model
- Incorporates heat transfer theory based on heat loss from the body to its surroundings, during cold and breezy/windy days
- Lowers the calm wind threshold to 3 mph
- Uses a consistent standard for skin tissue resistance
- Assumes no impact from the sun, i.e., clear night sky.
”Five feet” is chosen because it is the average height
of the human face. It’s also a far more valid measurement than the standard 10m height that wind speed is measured at. 10m works well for airplanes and airports…where most weather is measured. It doesn’t work so well for human height. Five feet (1.5m) does.You can go to the first link and see pictures of the volunteers. They don’t seem to be Munchkins.