John Wheeler: Wind cools in the summer, but it isn’t wind chill – InForum

U.S. NEWS


FARGO — When it’s cold, as in a cold winter day or a cool day in summer, wind makes you feel colder because it whisks away the air against your skin, causing you to lose body heat more quickly. This is wind chill. When it’s warm, as in summer warm, there is no wind chill because your body is not working to stay warm. A summer breeze will cool you down, but the process is entirely different.

When the air around you is hot, you sweat. As this sweat evaporates, the process of the phase change of water from liquid to gas requires heat, which is removed from your skin, cooling you down. Wind increases the evaporation rate, causing you to feel even cooler. In both summer and winter, wind speeds around 20-30 mph approach the maximum cooling effect. Higher wind speeds have little additional effect because there is either no more warm air to blow away or no more sweat to evaporate from your skin.

John Wheeler

John Wheeler is Chief Meteorologist for WDAY, a position he has had since May of 1985. Wheeler grew up in the South, in Louisiana and Alabama, and cites his family’s move to the Midwest as important to developing his fascination with weather and climate. Wheeler lived in Wisconsin and Iowa as a teenager. He attended Iowa State University and achieved a B.S. degree in Meteorology in 1984. Wheeler worked about a year at WOI-TV in central Iowa before moving to Fargo and WDAY..





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