Wind Chill and Our Perception of Cold

As I mentioned earlier this week, we've had a couple of exceptionally cold days here in Maine this week. One town near me recorded a wind chill of -36F on Tuesday. This weekend is supposed to be just as cold.  I've gone ice fishing in similar conditions without moaning about it (at least that's how I remember it). The cold got me wondering, "am I being a wimp about the cold or has my perception of cold changed?" At that line of thinking brought me back to an older Minute Earth video about perceptions of extreme weather. 

The psychology of extreme weather
Is the weather really "extreme" or is that just our impression of it? The following Minute Earth video takes on the topic of how extreme weather affects our thinking about weather patterns in general. I found the video to be interesting from a psychology perspective. The video is embedded below.



How wind chill is calculated
As I mentioned above, the wind chill was -36F earlier this week in a town near mine. Wind chill or not, that's cold! The following video explains how wind chill is calculated. The video comes from Presh Talwalkar.