why does it sometimes show the temperature outside is 5° but Feels like 1°. Isn’t the actual temperature supposed to be what it’s feeling like? What’s the whole purpose of having that 5° there then
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If it’s windy then the it can feel colder than the actual temperature. The wind is colder than the ambient temperature
temperature measures the average kinetic energy present in the air. however, how we experience that energy can change based on other factors such as wind chill or humidity
The *real* temperature is a result of physical processes that we can measure with tools like thermometers. But there are *other* factors like humidity and wind chill that also affect how we as humans feel that temperature, and so the “real feel” temperature aims to estimate that. For instance, it might *technically* and physically be warmer than freezing outside, but due to very strong winds it might *feel* like it is much colder than freezing.
The first is important to record so that we can establish average weather and climate trends for an area over a month, a year, many years. The second is important to report so that we can dress appropriately when we go outside.
Humidity, or the amount of water in the air can affect how it feels like. Water holds more heat energy, and so has a greater impact on how much you heat up or cool down.
Wind also affects how you feel. Notice that when you cool yourself with the fan, the fan is not actually cooling the air, it feels cooler because the speed heat is transferred to air is increased. This you can imagine as newer fresh air is bombarding ar your skin as opposed to air heated by your skin sort of stagnating around you.
“Wind chill”
When the wind hits your skin, it evaporates water off it. This is endothermic because the molecules that evaporate are absorbing heat in the process. This cools you down, and is why our bodies sweat when overheated.
So the “feels like” temperature takes into account wind chill. The temperature is 5°, but because of the wind it feels the same as if it was 1° without any wind.
The temperature is the true measurement of how hot the air is. So put an object in the air and it will reach that temperature. If it is cooler it will heat up and if it it warmer it will cool down. It do not happen direct but take time.
The feels-like temperature is a measurement of how good the air is in heating up or cooling down a human. So if you have “5° but Feels like 1°” you have a wind that causes the 5° air to cool you down like 1° non-moving air.
When air cools you down you heat it up, so the air around you is slightly warmer and wind will replace that air with other air that is cooler. More wind will also penetrate clothes more and replace hot ait that is trapped there with cooler
The feels-like temperature is for a human in some specific clothing. If you are out naked then “5° but Feels like 1°” do not apply because the wind will make you lose heat faster if you do not have clothes that block it.
The feels likes do not have an effect on the final temperature. If you are out long enough at 5° but Feels like 1° your body temperature will end up at 5°. You will at this point be dead.
In the same way, if you leave water out at a temperature just above freezing but the feels like the temperature is below freezing the water will not freeze. It will reach the air temperature faster if there is wind but the wind does not change the final temperature.
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Your sensation of “hot” or “cold” is *not* temperature. Your body doesn’t care about the actual temperature. It cares about how fast heat is leaving or entering your body. For example, metal feels “colder” than wood even if they’ve been in the same room (and therefore around the same temperature). Because metal is more conductive and pulls your heat away from your body faster than wood.
Wind does the same thing. In still air, you have a kind of blanket of warmer air around you because your body heated it up. That blanket makes it harder for more heat to escape. When there’s wind, that blanket can’t form, so heat escapes your body more easily. **5° with x amount of wind feels the same as 1° with no wind.**
Two examples:
– Your body is constantly radiating heat. So if you stand still in a room for an hour, the air around you will be a bit warmer than the air on the other side of the room. If it’s windy, though, the wind will carry that warm air away from you. Therefore, if it’s windy, it feels colder than it actually is, because you won’t benefit from your own radiated heat warming the space around you.
– When it’s hot, you sweat. The moisture evaporates into the air. Evaporation is an endothermic reaction: turning the liquid sweat into vapor consumes heat from the environment, making your skin feel cooler, that’s the purpose of sweat. Cools you down. But if the humidity is high (lots of water vapor already in the air), evaporation doesn’t work as well, so sweating won’t cool you down as much. Therefore, if it’s humid (and hot enough to make you sweat), it feels hotter than it actually is.
Thermometers don’t radiate heat or sweat, so they don’t experience either of those situations. They just report the actual temperature of the air they’re in. The “feels like” temperature is an estimate that tries to take into account how things like wind and humidity would affect temperature for a human. A 100-degree day with still, humid air feels a lot more suffocating than a 100-degree day with a dry breeze.
How hot or cold something feels is a function of how fast heat transfers between things. For instance, a peice of wood and a peice of metal could both be cold, but the metal will feel colder, because it will absorb the heat from your hand faster than the wood.
Or think of a fan cooling you off. It is blowing the same temperature air at you that the room is, but makes you feel cold because it is blowing away the warmer air directly radiating off your body.
So two rooms could be 20°. Room A is windy and humid, while room B the air is still and dry. The wind and humidity is room A transfers the heat away from your body more quickly than the dry, still air in room B.
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