wind chill factor

[randoskier]

Wind Chill Factor is total bullshit, I have never seen this "stat" or "heat index" outside of the USA. Wind chill is an exaggeration to sell papers or click bait. How cold you "feel" in wind is a total BS stat". Heat Index is just as stupid and deployed for the same reason- to titillate Americans. That said it was fucking cold on Mt Washington yesterday!

[randoskier]

0

[CwmRaider]

The calculation will depend on how well your clothes isolate you from the wind. But strong winds in the mountains in winter are the most dangerous weather phenomenon i know of. I experienced a storm one Easter with up to 80 knot winds while on skis. The cold was the lesser problem. Visibility and group communication breakdown, disorientation, difficulty to stand. thank goodness we could ski down into a lower valley where we found some lee.

[Montana St Alum]

-62f - actual - in Peter Sinks, Utah last Tuesday.

[bauerb]

yup, wind-chill is nonsense. to prove it, all you need to do is pick a nice 15F degree day, hop in your car and hit the highway. stick your bare arm out the window for an hour at 60mph. no problem at all. its 15F degrees. if your hand gets cold thats your own damn fault for not being tough enough.

[mca80]

yup, wind-chill is nonsense. to prove it, all you need to do is pick a nice 15F degree day, hop in your car and hit the highway. stick your bare arm out the window for an hour at 60mph. no problem at all. its 15F degrees. if your hand gets cold thats your own damn fault for not being tough enough.

[mca80]

I was gonna ski the other day when it was 13F but 25mph winds. I took a day off after about 5 minutes. The next day I did a combo of downhill and xc in -8 to -3F but no wind. Even the downhill in -3F was infinitely more pleasant than really windy above 10F.

Also, I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma for a year many years ago. 60 straight days of 100+ heat index. Trust me, it's a meaningful metric.

This guy has such an anti-American bias, maybe typical of am expat, it distorts all his thoughts.

[paulzo]

I

Wind Chill Factor is total bullshit

Are you saying that you do not believe you lose more heat in the wind than in still air? Basic thermodynamics will tell you that you do lose more heat to moving air than to still air.
Or are you saying that the numbers quoted as "wind chill factor" are inaccurate or not meaningful? On that point there is some room for argument, although I would expect that nearly all weather forecasting and reporting services are using the same calculation, the one used by NOAA:
https://www.weather.gov/epz/wxcalc_windchill
https://www.weather.gov/media/epz/wxcalc/windChill.pdf

[Montana St Alum]

It can be of some use, as long as you understand what it measures. It's pretty intuitive but I prefer "cold, f*cking cold and really f*cking cold".
It's particularly helpful to calculate your time of useful consciousness as you stumble, intoxicated, from the hot tub to the sauna.

The point at which balls freeze off a brass monkey is also good info, if you are in an 1800's shootout between naval vessels.

Sadly, "freezing the balls off a brass monkey" is in the category of "military humor", rather than historical fact.
Still, it does communicate your likelihood of staying comfortable in flip flops and a light coat of oil.

[bauerb]

I have a video posted that shows me skinning up Whitefish on a bluebird day. in the video I'm talking about how strange it is that no one is skiing down. in the video I have bare hands, and a frozen beard and hair. when I summited I realized that no one was skiing because they close the lift at -40F. there was no wind that day. I remarked in the video that climbing is one thing, but you cannot stand around, I bolted back down the mountain. if it had been -10F but blowing 25mph I would have gone home instead of summiting....not because of windchill of course, but because the wind noise ruins the videos