I never understood why temperature can sometimes feel different in different context. Thanks for educating me!
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Temperatures feel different due to humidity levels. When it is more humid, it feels like a lower temperature. When the air is more dry, you don’t feel as cold as easily.
Edit: then how do you explain low temperatures (like 40) feeling colder when humid then when dry?
Depending on where you live humidity may be higher in the summer vs fall/winter. Your body relies on sweat evaporating as its means of cooling you down. Higher humidity means more water in the air, more water in the air means it’s harder for sweat to evaporate. It doesn’t need to feel oppressively humid for this to take effect, just a little extra humidity in the air can do the trick.
The perception of temperature can be influenced by a variety of factors, not just the actual temperature reading.
Sunlight: During the summer, the sun’s rays hit the Earth at a steep angle, and the light does not spread out as much, thus increasing the amount of energy hitting any given spot. Also, the long daylight hours allow the Earth plenty of time to reach warm temperatures. In contrast, during the winter, the sun’s rays hit the Earth at a shallow angle.
Air Movement and Radiant Temperature: Air temperature is only one of three parameters that influence thermal comfort. The others are air movement and the radiant temperature of the surroundings. In winter, you may experience more discomfort from drafts, as air entering the room is likely to be colder. This gives you an increased feeling of cold at the same air temperature. The radiant temperature of your surroundings is a function of the temperatures of all the surfaces around you. These are likely to be lower in winter than in summer.
Humidity: The level of humidity can also affect how we perceive temperature. Higher humidity can make the air feel warmer, while lower humidity can make it feel cooler.
Indoors or outdoors?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_comfort
Human perception of feeling hot or cold relies on a lot of factors. Air temperature is only one. The human body is continuously metabolizing food into energy and generating heat. This heat has to be removed, but not too fast or too slowly.
A few very strong differences: under the sun vs shade, windy vs calm air, humid vs dry. All of these affect how much heat is input (being in the sun) or output from the body (wind, sweating in humid or dry air).
Brown fat. When it’s cold out for the season your body stores a special fat that releases heat. When it’s hot out consistently then your body doesn’t hold onto as much brown fat.
It’s why people traveling to a new climate will feel too hot or too cold.
In northern climates I heard a saying sweat into summer and shiver into winter. You wear your jacket through spring so you trick your body into staying cool. You wait as long as you can to start insulating in the winter to trick your body into keeping you warm.
It’s also why babies need an extra layer of clothes. They don’t have these special fats. Children have a lot. It’s why you see kids and shove teens running around in shorts in the fall. It’s also why older people are always cold.
There’s a video I saw on YouTube about this but I don’t remember the channel.
Outside, I think it may be a matter of less infrared heat being emitted from the cool/cold surrounding material ( ground, pavement, buildings, trees, etc.). Simply warming the air for a day or two isn’t enough time to warm up these environmental masses to near summertime levels.
70 in the winter would be a blessing. Probably too warm when being used to -30. In the summer, that would sometimes feel cold.
As a Florida Man™️, I believe the answer to be mostly related to humidity. This weekend we finally had a “cold front”, and our high temp was 89 instead of 92. Hardly any different right? But it felt about a million times better and everyone was outside because the air was drier. It felt great.
I can handle 90+ temps all day when the humidity is down. It’s the soupy air down here that makes summer suck so much.
Typically, there is more moisture in the air in the summer, because warmer air holds more water. When air holds more water, it holds more energy and transfers that energy more easily. This means that when the air is warm, it will transfer more energy to you. It also prevents your sweating from working as well, because your sweat cools you down by evaporating, but if it’s humid it won’t evaporate as well.
This is why people always joke, in arid areas, that “yeah it’s hot, but it’s a dry heat!”. When air is more humid, it feels hotter.
This actually works in reverse too. When it’s cold, humid air will pull more energy out of you. So on humid days (like after a rain or snow) it will feel colder than drier days.
For me it’s the opposite. 70s during a time it’s been 100s feels really cool to me. 70s when it’s normally mid 50s or 40s feels warm to me.
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