ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Does it feel like the windchill is going through you this time of the year? That is meant to be a rhetorical question because most of us feel the sting of the harsh conditions during the winter season.

But knowing the windchill and understanding the windchill can be two different things. How do we determine the windchill and what are the ingredients for this calculation? I will not bore with the exact mathematical equation, but it is important to know that windchill is not used on inanimate objects. Your car does not feel the windchill, but the calculation does works well on humans and animals. The old standard was to use a windchill chart which factors in the outside temperature and wind speed. You determine this by finding where the temperature intersects with the value of the wind by use of a vertical and horizontal axis.

The real value of this product is showing how a certain type of weather feels on exposed skin. Let’s look at an example. If your exposed skin is in an atmosphere with no wind and a temperature of 20 degrees, that is certainly cold by any standard. Our body heat is lost by the heat transfer by means of convection.  However, in these conditions your skin does retain some degree of warmth via a very minute layer of warmer air that is located close to the skin.  But now let’s rachet up the wind. At that same temperature, the wind speeds increase to 20 miles per hour.  Now the windchill is at just four degrees. That wind can now more effectively remove that layer of heat near your skin. Naturally, this makes you feel much colder.

It is important to note that the windchill can be effectively nullified by covering all of that exposed skin.