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Windchill Answer
Thu Jan 01, 2004
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton and you're listening to The Weather Notebook. Today we, or rather you,
answer last month's Brainstorm about Wind Chill.
Here's Mark Hess of New Bedford, Massachusetts: "Wind chill is related to accelerated heat
loss due to moving air over something that has heat."
Richard Harrison, who listens on WFIU in Indiana, wrote in to tell us that the concept was
developed by Paul Siple in 1939. But he had help with the experimental phase in the 1940s, as
Fane Downs of Abilene, Texas explains: "The man who devised the wind chill factor is recently
deceased, somebody from Abilene, Charles Passel. And I think that wind chill has to do with
how the skin receives the air temperature. If the wind is blowing, it's a good bit
colder."
Even our own "weather doctor," Keith Heidorn, couldn't resist calling in and talking about
Siple: "He once graced the cover of 'Time Magazine.' He was known many years as America's
number one expert on the Antarctic and the Antarctic's weather situations. He was the first
Eagle Scout to go out into the Antarctic continent during Admiral Byrd's first Antarctic
expedition in 1928."
From Buffalo, Mitchell Harwitz explains what Siple and Passel were shooting for: "Their
specific intention was to estimate the time until bare skin would be frostbitten in various
combinations of air temperature and wind velocity."
In 2001, the formula was changed, purportedly to make it a bit more accurate.
Thanks again to all who wrote or called. Our show is produced with support from Subaru of
America and the National Science Foundation.
Today's Links
More on Siple:
http://www.south-pole.com/p0000111.htm
More:
http://www.sws.uiuc.edu/atmos/statecli/FAQ/wind_chill.htm
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