For example, I live in Phoenix. The other day the temperature was reading 90, but it also stated “feels like 97” wouldn’t that just make it 97 outside…?
For example, I live in Phoenix. The other day the temperature was reading 90, but it also stated “feels like 97” wouldn’t that just make it 97 outside…?
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In the Midwest you can have a outside air temperature of 0F. Add a thirty mph wind to that and you suddenly have a feels like temp on your skin of -30F. Actual temperature vs. what your skin will feel.
The “feels like” temperature incorporates the effect of humidity. Humid weather feels hotter because it is harder for our bodies to cool off with sweat. Dryer weather feels cooler because sweating is more effective.
Humidity and lack of air movement can make temperatures feel much warmer than they are. Even if it’s a normally comfortable temperature, if there is no wind and the humidity is high it will feel muggy and hot since your body is unable to cool itself. Similarly it can feel lower (although this is less common) if there is little to no humidity and a decent amount of air to wick away sweat.
Temperature is just a measure of energy. So air temperature is how much energy is in the air.
It doesn’t take into account humidity or wind, which can change how the temperature feels.
You can feel this by blowing on your finger. Then lick your finger and blow on it again. It’ll feel colder when it’s wet, despite the temperature being the same.
The only way to “feel” any air temperature is through the rate of energy transfer from your skin into the air. If that rate is sped up it “feels” colder, if that rate is slowed down it “feels” warmer, regardless of the true air temperature. The rate of energy transfer can be affected by several factors, but typically humidity and wind speed are the largest.
If the humidity is high, your sweat doesn’t evaporate as fast, so the rate of energy loss to the air from you skin is slowed down, making it feel hotter.
Apparent temperature is influenced by factors like wind (which reduces apparent temperature) and humidity (which increases apparent temperature).
It’s easiest to understand this with the concept of wind chill first, and then realize the same concept applies to humidity.
Let’s say you were standing outside and there was no wind at all. Your body is heating the air around you. So even though the temperature may read 30, it feels colder when there’s wind because the wind is constantly stripping away the thin layer of warmer air. Effectively the the “feels like” is the result of the increased thermal energy transfer because the wind is taking away your body heat faster.
The reverse happens with humidity. The more humid it is, the harder it is for your body to cool off because sweating is less effective and the moisture in the air makes it so the thermal energy is transferred to your body faster.
It’s worth pointing out that “Feels Like” is the updated term for “heat index” and “wind chill” to make the information more understandable for the average person, but at the same time, it’s an actual mathematical formula, not a subjective opinion.
“Real feel” include humidity and wind, which both impact how the temperature feels to your skin.
So on a humid day, the thermometer might only read 90 degrees, but you skin feels like it is 97 degrees because the humidity is making it hard for your sweat to evaporate, making you warmer
As a former Phoenix liver as well you have to take into account different areas as well. Asphalt retains tons of heat so at the ground level it’ll feel hotter as well. If you’re away from the floors radiating heat your actual air temperature won’t be that hot
We don’t generally sense temperature. We really sense heat transfer into or out of our bodies. The primary variable when it comes to rate of heat transfer is the temperature difference between the two bodies exchanging heat. In this case, the two bodies are the surrounding environment and your body. The “feels like” temperature incorporates different effects that change the rate of heat transfer, such as humidity or convection effects from wind, and gives the equivalent ambient temperature.
When the “feels like” temperature is higher than the actual temperature, that means it is harder to transfer heat out of our bodies. It is harder to transfer heat out of our bodies at higher temperatures because it’s closer to our core body temperature, minimizing or even reversing the direction of heat transfer. When the “feels like” temperature is less than the actual temperature, it becomes easier to transfer heat out of our bodies, because it gets further away from our core body temperature.
Humans aren’t inanimate objects like bricks. If you put a brick outside it will warm up or cool down until it matches the current air temperature. Humidity and wind are irrelevant.
But humans aren’t like that, our bodies work really hard to keep our temperature constant. So our subjective experience of temperature is determined by how hard our body is working to stay warm/cool. In cold weather our bodies have to work harder if it is windy. In hot weather our bodies have to work harder if it is humid.
“Real feel” is more about feel than real. It is an estimate on how hot/cold it would have to be for our bodies to have to work as hard as they are today, if there was no wind or humidity.
Because things like humidity and wind affect how the air feels but don’t affect what the temperature of the air actually is. A cold day can feel even colder if it’s windy and a hot day can feel even hotter if it’s humid
As other says, it includes effects of wind and humidity.
But it’s easy to figure out WHY those are included yourself if you understand how we feel temperature.
Which is to say… We don’t.
Thermometers tell you an objective temperature based on one physical mechanism or another. Our bodies have nothing like a thermometer anywhere in them.
What we feel instead is the flow of heat through our skin between the inside of our body and the outside.
Because our bodies are meant to keep a stable temperature (because we’re warm-blooded) this flow of heat is usually roughly equivalent to a temperature difference, and therefore an indirect measurement of temperature. And that’s what we “feel” as temperature.
But because it’s indirect, any changes in heat flow will throw it off.
Any change in heat conductivity will make things feel colder or hotter, like metals vs. foam.
Any difference in heat capacity will make things feel colder or hotter, like water vs. air.
Any difference in your body or skin temperature (like a fever, hypothermia or the bloodflow to your limbs) will make the same outside temperature feel hotter or colder.
Water is better at both dumping heat into and removing it from your skin, so moisture makes hot air feel hotter and cold air feel colder. Moving gasses are colder, so wind feels colder.
And none of this has any relation to what a thermometer reads.