Do wind chill temperatures affect your frostbite chances?

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Wind chill could lead to frostbite much quicker than usual during this week’s Arctic blast.

While the actual temperatures will likely stay warmer than -10° throughout the event, wind chill values may drop as cold as -25° in spots.

Wind chill is how cold it feels on exposed skin when wind carries away body heat during cold temperatures. When the wind is not blowing, air that is heated by your body stays close to your body. This allows even exposed skin to stay warmer.

When the wind picks up, it carries heat away from bodies. The faster the wind, the faster you feel cold.

The National Weather Service’s formula to calculate wind chill is: 35.74 + 0.6215T – 35.75(V0.16) + 0.4275T(V0.16). Where “T” represents air temperature in Fahrenheit and “V” represents wind speed in miles per hour.

Once wind chill values reach -20°, it only takes 30 minutes or less for frostbite to set in.

Surprisingly, humidity does not affect the overall wind chill enough to be considered a factor, but if skin or clothing become wet it can shorten the time to frostbite considerably.

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