The north wind blew a dance troupe of ice crystals across the Horseshoe Valley Road, making the cold day seem even more so. Although the sun shone brightly, it was hard to see it through the frost and dried road spray on my car’s windshield.
As I came along the straightaway between Concessions 7 and 8, a quick movement in the field caught my attention. A fox was making a 'beeline' for the road, obviously thinking (or at least hoping) to cross before I got there. I let off the accelerator a tad, just to ensure a safe crossing.
Despite the deep snow and frigid air, the little fox was making good headway. Plowing through the occasional drift, it managed to make the road's shoulder with lots of room still left ahead of me.
Like a shadow it was across the salt- and sand-smeared asphalt and scrambling again through powder snow, passing through a gap in the page wire fence with absolutely no resistance.
Then, just as I was passing it, the fox paused as if to savour the victory of outrunning a car. The wind blew its reddish fur and pulled at the puffy tail, snow and ice crystals clung to its black whiskers, and the sun caused the eyes to glint shiny black. And then I had to look away, as the car has a tendency to go into ditches when I tarry with sidelong glances.
The beauty of the moment was certainly memorable, the fox standing so proudly amongst the gray stalks of last season's milkweed that poked above the packed drift.
But what got me to thinking was the way the animal seemed to take no notice of the bitterly cold wind. Sure it has a thick winter coat, but what of the low temperatures? I knew that I couldn't survive for long in that wind without proper wardrobe.
By coincidence the weather report was then being announced on the radio: "High today of minus 13, but the wind chill will make it feel like minus 25. Be sure to dress for the weather." Minus 25! Yowza!
Wind chill has always been a mystery to me. If it feels like minus 25, then it is minus 25, right? Wrong, so I found out. Later that day a search of the Internet provided some interesting facts.
Wind chill affects only things that naturally give off heat, like people and animals. As our bodies miraculously maintain a somewhat constant internal temperature, we also give off a certain amount of excess heat. In fact, our bodies are surrounded, or enveloped, in a thin layer of warm air created by ourselves.
When the wind blows against exposed skin, this layer of heat must be replenished in order for us to stay comfortably warm. When the heat is removed faster than it can be replaced we feel chilled, and the faster it is removed, the chillier we feel.
But this only happens to warm-blooded creatures. My car, zipping along at 80 kilometres per hour, should be 'feeling' a temperature much, much lower than if parked and idling. Not so.
While any created heat is certainly whisked away, the metal cannot drop in temperature below the air temperature — so if the air is minus 13 degrees, that's as cold as the metal can become, even if forced through the air at high speed.
Another tid-bit of info I discovered was that in the 1970s Canadians had developed a different way to state wind chill than Americans (and no, adding "eh" after "cold enough for ya" isn't it).
Seems that we Canucks weren't satisfied with just saying that it feels like minus 40 degrees, first we put it in Celsius rather than Fahrenheit (because minus two sounds more impressive than plus 30) then ... at one time, we are supposed to state it as 'watts per square metre." No kidding, I found it on the Internet… so Canadian.
If the there was a reading of 1,200 to 1,600 watts per square metre you would be feeling pretty cold. In fact, 1,600 to 2,300 might result in frostbite. And if the reading hit 2,700 watts per square metre, exposed flesh would freeze in 30 seconds!
In 2001 the Canadian weather folks decided that perhaps a simple wind chill index expressed as “feels like” would suffice to get us to dress properly for outdoor activities.
What the wind chill index does do, is let us know how quickly frostbite and/or hypothermia could affect us. The speed at which our body temperature drops, and the low temperature it bottoms out as, can make it impossible for a natural regeneration of heat. As they say, no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing; bundle up is good advice!
Quite honestly, the fox beside the road could probably care less about measuring degrees from dear knows watt, but if you want to learn more just enter "wind chill" on an Internet search engine and surf from there. It's a great way to spend time indoors when you might get the watts sucked right out of you should you venture outdoors.
