I have a friend who has a BROTHER that is a meteorologist, so he thinks he's a meteorologist, too. Last weekend, I left his Super Bowl party and it was COLD. My truck has an outside thermometer built in and it showed a temp of 6°F. I got home and called him to let him know we got home ok & he told me the temp was 11°. I told him our truck showed 6. He says that's because the WIND VELOCITY made it colder. Now....I know about wind chill, and it shouldn't affect my truck's thermometer. At least, that's what I think. Anyone know for sure? Can you point me to a website that I can reference? I've looked, but can't seem to find anything.
2007-02-06 15:49:25 · 10 answers · asked by Polly 4 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Weather
Metalman, no one really CARES. ;-) You're right. It was COLD. (even colder since!) It's not a real argument, but my understanding of 'wind chill' is that it only affects human skin, or I recently read it can also affect anything that holds 'heat', such as a car engine left out in the open (read some odd article about that while I was researching THIS). Haven, your link is referring to human skin, from what I see. This is just, as GS says, a temperature probe. I doesn't have any heat to lose. I'm open, though! Can anyone prove either of us right?
2007-02-06 16:08:17 · update #1
OOPS! GS points to skin windchill. Haven mentioned the probe. Sorry 'bout that!
2007-02-06 16:09:46 · update #2
Do you have a newer truck? If so, and you know your sensor isn't clogged up with gunk, mud, etc...and it otherwise seems fine -- it's probably very accurate. I had a 2000 F-150 (2004 car) that was (is) spot-on with the temp, from hot to cold. The only time that it ever got out of whack was during a hot summer day sitting in traffic and the heat from under the hood and the concrete made it read hot. Once I was moving again, the indicated temperature always dropped off.
Where's your brother's thermometer? Is it on his house, next to a leaky window or next to the dryer exhaust? The heat from just being next to a warm house could make a difference on its reading, especially if it is protected from wind. If this is the case, then your brother could be right, because your truck thermometer would be sampling the true, well-mixed air -- his thermometer would be sampling the still air that was warmed by heat from his house.
(I'm writing the rest of this because of what others have posted)
Also consider that the wind chill doesn't actually represent a real temperature that objects will cool to. If the air temperature is 37F and the wind chill is 25F, does water freeze? No...the water still thinks it's 37F. Eventually the water will also be 37F, because the air molecules have the thermal energy of 37F and conduction processes between the two substances will tend to equalize them both. In order for the water to freeze given this situation, it would have to cool via radiational cooling...but in that situation, it would be warmed by the 37F air that is blowing across it -- thus preventing freezing.
If the water, or any other inanimate object, had started out warmer than the air, the wind chill serves to indicate how much faster the water would cool to the actual air temperature versus how long it would take without wind.
2007-02-06 19:02:41 · answer #1 · answered by tbom_01 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
A thermometer reading 6° will read 6° whether the wind is blowing at 5knots or 500knots. Thermometers measure the temperature of the air and the strength of the wind has no effect on that. Wind chill, for the most part, is pure gee-whizzery. It is wrongly used, poorly understood but popular because it sounds better than the real temperature.
I have never used wind chill anywhere including two trips to Antarctica. It is popular in the USA and, unfortunately, it is gaining some adherents here in Australia where its use is bizarre. Tell me what the temperature is and what the wind is doing and I will decide what clothes to wear. I don't need someone to tell me a mythical non-measurable temperature.
2007-02-06 23:33:46 · answer #2 · answered by tentofield 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
you are correct - the windchill should not affect the truck's thermometer reading if it is properly protected from the wind. however it could read low if it is not.
windchill really measures the effect of the extra cooling caused by the speed of the wind. It measures the rate of extra cooling caused by the wind and expresses this in terms of the non windy temperature that would feel the same. For a long time it has been overstated so they just changed how it is determined to more accurately reflect the wind's affect on a human.
In the case of your truck, the sensor should not be exposed to the wind so it will not see the reduction in temperature. if the sensor is a heater that measures the rate that heat is lost, in theory it could estimate wind chill (ie. an active sensor). but of course the vehicle's speed would affect the measurement a lot . check with a dealer or mechanic where the senor is on your vehicle.
2007-02-06 16:06:45 · answer #3 · answered by elentophanes 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Wind chill only affects something that produces heat (like your body), it has NO EFFECT on a thermometer, your thermometer is correct, it also depends if the probe is in the sun or not, it is most accurate in the shade as far as air temps are concerned.
An accurate thermometer should be out of the sun, over grass, and mounted 5' in height.
2007-02-06 21:55:43 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
I'll do my best to help. I think meteorologists use some sort of math formula to figure out wind chill. He could be right because maybe his thermometer is on the outside facing in a window (better shielding from the wind) while your car was outside and had no shielding, so it is possible the wind could have effected it in that manner. In either case, who cares? It is FREEZING out there, and 5 degrees in this case makes absolutely no difference. :)
2007-02-06 15:56:34 · answer #5 · answered by metalman31 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
My experience with vehicle thermometers is that they don't always match other ambient thermometers. There can be quite a difference in thermometer readings depending on its location as well. Have you ever noticed passing those digital thermometer/clocks on the side of the road that many times they don't have the same reading? It all depends.
It really has nothing to do with wind chill. A thermometer alone isn't going to register any effect of wind chill.
2007-02-06 15:53:56 · answer #6 · answered by Yamson 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I'm more accurately agnostic than atheist, but I do believe in seasons. In fact I believe it is winter in ND right now. I lived in Gunnison Colorado in January 1974. The high daytime temperature was 20 degrees below zero for two weeks, and that was without the wind chill. I've believed in winter every January as long as I can remember.
2016-03-29 08:55:16 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Wind velocity and wind chill are the same thing, moving air will lower the temperature, because of the ability of moving air to remove water particles on a surface, similar to sweating on a hot day, the sweat doesn't necessicarily cool you off, so much as the water evaporating in the air.
2007-02-06 15:54:09 · answer #8 · answered by paratechfan 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
He's wrong. How can the wind affect the temperature probe on the inside of the probe? It can't. He just wants to sound intelligent. He's not.
2007-02-06 15:54:13 · answer #9 · answered by Haven17 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The movement of air over the truck's thermometer would create the same effect as the wind chill factor.
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wind-chill-effect-d_112.html
2007-02-06 15:54:55 · answer #10 · answered by G S 1 · 0⤊ 2⤋