Monday's local weather

Good morning from the northwest end of Augusta, Maine. IT is a truly lovely morning with some patchy fog remaining. The sun has now burned through any remaining fog and it is shaping up to be another wonderfully unseasonable, warm and humid day.

This morning's readings are:

a relative humidity of 79% with a Dew Point of (measurement unavailable)ºF.

The temperature is 68.4ºF.

The wind  velocity this morning is between 2.4 mph and 4.0 mph out of the Northwest. The highest gust recorded in the past month is 23.3 mph. 

our Barometric pressure is 29.93 and falling.

Today we are expecting sun and humidity that is as unseasonable as it is welcome. Tonight we will have temps in the 50's with patchy fog again.   

Even though our recent weather has been warm and humid, we know that it is going to get cool soon. For those who work out of doors, or happen to be kids standing at a bus stop each morning, knowing what "wind chill" is, and hence whether to take a sweater or coat with you when you leave your house in the morning might be informative. The wind chill explanation below is only one of many such explanations that are easily found on the internet. I hope you find this information useful.

  

What is "Wind Chill"?

You have probably heard weatherpeople on the TV news talking about the windchill factor. The windchill factor is the temperature that a person feels because of the wind. For example, if a thermometer reads 35 degrees Fahrenheit outside and the wind is blowing at 25 miles per hour (mph), the windchill factor causes it to feel like it is 8 degrees F. In other words, your 98-degree body loses heat as though it is 8 degrees outside.

The windchill factor is the same effect that causes you to blow on hot soup to cool it down. The movement of the air increases the soup's loss of heat by convection, so the soup cools down faster.

For an inanimate object, windchill has an effect if the object is warm. For example, say that you fill two glasses with the same amount of 100-degree water. You put one glass in your refrigerator, which is at 35 degrees, and one outside, where it is 35 degrees and the wind is blowing at 25 mph (so the windchill makes it feel like 8 degrees). The glass outside will get cold quicker than the glass in the refrigerator because of the wind. However, the glass outside will not get colder than 35 degrees -- the air is 35 degrees whether it is moving or not. That is why the thermometer reads 35 degrees even though it feels like 8 degrees.

 

If you want to calculate your own Wind Chill, there is an online wind chill Calculator to be found at:

http://www.learner.org/interactives/weather/act_windchill/