ELI5- what’s the difference between the temperature and the “real feel?”

Question

Temperature is how hot/cold something is right?

So wouldn’t the real feel be the temperature in that area? For example How could a “real feel” in an area be 74°F but the actual temperature ends up being 80°F

In: 0

Answer 1

Perhaps it is best to start this answer with a little experiment.

Get a bowl of ice cold water, a bowl of warm water and a bowl of cool tap water.

Place one hand in the ice cold water, and the other in the warm water, and wait until both hands feel warm.

Now put both hands into the cool tap water.

What do you notice?

ANSWER: The hand in the ice water now feels hot, and the hand in the warm water now feels cold, despite both hands being in the same bowl of water. This is because your body is now accustomed to the ambient heat loss/gain from the hand, and now considers that normal. Then when you move your hand into the cool water, the hand in the icewater is now losing *less energy* so it feels hot, meanwhile the hand in the warm water is now losing *more energy* so it feels cold. Despite both hands being in the same bowl.

Therefore it can be concluded that the human body is extremely unreliable at accurately measuring temperature, as it can only measure in terms of hot and cold relative to the previous accustomed environment.