A look at how wind chills are calculated on the prairies
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With cold temperatures settling in across the province, its officially wind chill season on the prairies.
Wind chill is most simply defined as a way of describing heat loss. Environment Canada developed a formula several years ago to simulate the heat loss effects.
Natalie Hasell, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said when they decided to do these experiments, they had volunteers dressed in winter clothing with their faces exposed. They took the volunteers and put them on treadmills with facing directly to the cold and tested them in both dry and wet scenarios.
From those findings, they developed two different formulas, one for below zero with wind speeds higher than five kilometres per hour, as well as another for wind speeds between zero and five kilometres per hour. Hasell said wind chills are quite complex but come down to a simple idea about the loss of heat around your body.
