Why don't they use 'windchill' in summer? or 'humidity' in winter?

[KurtNYC]

If windchill and humidity are part of the equation, how come they aren't applied consistently? It is summer, 80-degrees and a nice breeze therefore...74. It is winter, 35-degree but humid therefore... 40.

Okay actually you would have to apply both all the time so it becomes like triginometry: temperature minus wind chill plus humidity = bullshit temperature.

I suspect the inconsistency is because the local TV news loves to push things toward the extreme. If it is hot, they say it is hotter. Btw, windchill is supposedly the "perceived temperature on exposed skin" so they are giving the weather for streakers and nudists apparently.

[Ladyhawk]

1. Humidity is used in California during the winter.

Usually it means a storm is coming or in progress. 100% humidity = rain. Summer is usually dry as a bone here, so humidity doesn't affect perceived temperatures. (It rarely rains in the summer.)

During the summer in Northern California we sometimes get the "delta breeze"--usually one day behind Sacramento, if we're lucky.

[Bronco69]

2. I'm not sure, but I always thought that's what the heat index is for

in the summer. That it was the equivalent of the wind chill in the winter? :shrug:

[GAspnes]

3. because around here

There's not much relief from the wind in the summer (you're already sweating and the air's too humid to evaporate it rapidly), and there's no humidity in the winter, certainly not enough to make it feel warmer.

You're right, it's inconsistent,but I'll bet the effects are negligible in each season.

I went outside one night when they announced the air temp was -50 (some time in '78 or '79) but there was no wind. It was, well, not comfortable, but tolerable in a shirt and jeans for several minutes. Until I noticed that I couldn't feel my feet. The heat was being sucked right out of my shoes and into the concrete driveway.

And anyone who's stood on a pier in Boston in winter and felt the damp wind blowing off the ocean knows that high humidity only makes the wind feel colder. That was the first time I experienced "bone-chilling" cold. Brrrrrr. Worse than Minnesota.

[SmileyBoy]

5. In North Dakota it's good, because it's never humid.

In the summer here, 85 degrees and a wind (we always get wind) actually feels nice. By contrast, most 85 degree days in the Twin Cities in the summer fell like crap. And in the winter (you know how the people in Phoenix say "It's a dry heat"?), well, we say it's a dry cold. Because there's little to no ice/water particles in the air, even if it's -5 outside it won't feel as bad in Fargo as 10 above feels in Minneapolis.

[StopTheMorans]

4. looks like KurtNYC has a lot more up his sleeve than a dirty arm

methinks you may be on to something :D

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

6. It's simple

Cold air cannot hold as much moisture as warm air. As such, humidity is not a factor in the winter.

Windchill is a relative term to describe how temperature can feel to bare skin in the wind. The wind will almost always make your skin feel colder as still air acts as an insulator to heat. When the air's currents brush against your skin, it pushes away the air you've heated with your body, replacing it with colder air, hence the perceived drop in temperature.

On edit: Why isn't windchill measured in the summer? Because the difference in air temperature to body temperature isn't enough to create a change in temperature perception to really report.