How come wind cools you down, since it’s literally moving atoms, hitting your skin, creating kinetic energy?
In: Physics
Air that sticks around your skin heats up, until it’s the same temperature as your skin.
Wind that hits your skin heats your skin up a very, very tiny amount.
Wind that hits the air next to your skin blows it away, replacing it with new air, which is much cooler than your skin.
So on net, wind cools you down, because it keeps your skin in contact with cooler air for longer. (If the air temperature is hotter than your skin, this stops working unless you’re also sweating, since sweating will pull heat away by evaporating, and the wind *also* pulls the water away, giving new sweat more dry air to evaporate into.)
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