Can someone please explain to me why I feel chilly when it is 60 degrees in Tempe but I walk around my house shirtless with just boxers and wool socks with my thermostat set on 60 at home when it is 12 degrees out?
I don’t understand this at all. I need to buy some damned slippers.
RaflW
“just boxers and wool socks”
This is the Balloon Juice After Dark content I do not crave.
Baud
Humidity
teezyskeezy
Inside vs. outside? Spitballing out my ass here, but maybe open spaces are a little colder feeling because there’s always little air currents (possibly even more than in a drafty old fucking house, yes), and maybe there are some infrared radiation losses to the sky when you are outside that make you feel chillier than the indicated air temperature (if the sun is low, that is, otherwise you are getting more radiant heat from the sun than you are losing).
Now you may think that last one about the infrared radiation is a cheeky answer, but I promise it isn’t meant to be (though I do not know if it is true. Again I was just spitballing).
EDIT: Of course as Dan B. said below, the increased evaporation in dry air may make you feel colder too.
Geminid
@Baud: It’s a dry cold.
bbleh
Maybe cuz yer used to it being hot outside and not 12 degrees?
JaneE
Baud nailed it. Humidity makes a big difference.
Expect to feel cooler in the summer when the temperature is high. WV = muggy, Tempe = comfortable for the same temps most likely.
Dan B
I believe that extremely low humidity may cause your very slightly moist skin to experience evaporation. In addition water vapor has a high heat content.
I await the explanation of a real scientist.
teezyskeezy
@Geminid: Yes, humidity can sap more heat from you because of the higher heat capacity of the vapor air mixture vs. dry air.
EDIT: Of course as Dan B. said above, the increased evaporation in dry air may make you feel colder too.
TaMara
@Baud: Agree with that, but also, your body adjusts to temps…and now you’ve subjected it to warm temps it’s not sure how to handle it (I’m sure someone will have a great link on the science here).
I’ve been freaking freezing since I got back from LA and I usually run around barefoot all winter and have been known to step outside barefoot without a jacket to scold a dog, refill a water bowl or some other short task that I cannot bother to bundle up for.
teezyskeezy
@Dan B: Hm, I just said the opposite to someone else, but maybe this is a factor as well. Humid air can suck more heat from you because of its higher heat capacity, but maybe the increased evaporation on your skin is a factor here.
EDIT: Adding, I’m curious now. Humid and hot is terrible. Rather the dry heat. But a dry cold vs. wet cold? There may be a threshold where it becomes worse to have humidity. Googling now.
TaMara
Also, speaking of humidity, or lack of it, whatever amount of moisturizer you’re using, triple it.
Seriously.
RevRick
Your circadian rhythm is off with the two hour time shift. Our bp, body temp (especially core), and other biophysical factors are synced to the rhythm of light and dark.
teezyskeezy
@TaMara: But would you rather be outside in a dry cold or a clammy one for the same temperature? This is where I’m not sure about things. 35 degrees in the fog is COLD. I’d take the dry version.
VFX Lurker
Baud beat me to it. I moved from Michigan to Southern California in 1999. The dry SoCal winter weather cuts through me like a knife.
The difference between day and night temps out here can get ridiculous, too. A freezing night can follow a pleasant and warm sunny day. Wear layers!
Math Guy
It is all in your head – you expect it to be warmer outside in Tempe, so when it not you perceive it as cold. In a similar vein, when you expect to win an election and you do not, you perceive it to be rigged.
TaMara
@TaMara: I think this article explains it. My ex was in Antarctica for a year (before we met) and they were running around without jackets in weather that would have frozen any of us on a normal day.
Physiology of Cold Exposure
John Cole
@RaflW: yer getting it anyway
BigJimSlade
@teezyskeezy: Yeah, when I lived in the northeast, when it was, say, 40 degrees, windy and rainy, we just referred to that as “raw.” It was some of the most hated weather.
TaMara
@teezyskeezy: Depends on the amount of humidity – Boston/LA, I’m bone cold at 50 degrees with that wet ocean breeze.
Nebraska, 50 is comfortable – more humidity than here, less than the coasts.
Colorado, it’s downright shorts weather.
ETA: I think when Cole acclimates he’ll be comfortable at 60 – having tons of sun helps, too.
RevRick
@John Cole: Are you also feeling weirdly sluggish?
Keith P.
It’s probably a stroke.
pthomas745
The humidity at Tempe right now is 37 percent. The dew point is about 35. Dry air holds less heat.
The Latent Heat Of Condensation
Why does dry air feel colder?
When the air is drier, our sweat can evaporate into the air, drying our skin and letting our body heat escape and our body cool off. The drier the air, the less it feels hot to us.
https://www.montrealsciencecentre.com/blog/dry-cold-damp-cold-winter-weather-colder-when-humidity-higher
Chief Oshkosh
Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
I LOL’d.
teezyskeezy
Hm, googling a little I’m seeing that there aren’t a lot of standard calculations of heat index below 80 degrees, but some places saying that below 60 or so humidity adds a chill…wish wikipedia delved into that zone, but I’m not doing a literature search for this one….
Old School
The willow helps keep your house warm.
scav
Brains are weird too. 50° in September has everyone running for their sweaters while 50° in February produces an explosion of abandoned coats. At least, in those states in the middle where winters are actually cold and summers actually hot and swings of 50° are achievable on a a good day. Out here where daily swings may achieve 10°, people seem to collapse from heat at about 65°.
teezyskeezy
@pthomas745: Ah, but this is for freezing cold, where the relative humidity doesn’t matter that much because the air is SO dry (as the article you link says). At 60 degrees though, there is a big range and I’ve seen some evidence googling that there it can make you chillier.
Jackie
@JaneE: Plus refrigerated AC blowing on you. AC is essential in AZ, but the dry air circulating from it… Once you’re used to it, you’re fine.
RaflW
@John Cole: Absolutely!
Temperature perceptions are, as you noted, weird. I arrived in Summit County, CO on a night when it was 14°. I unloaded the car in a fall-weight jacket and some cotton driving gloves. It was chilly but I felt fine.
Same 14° in Minnesota, where I’d come from, it’d have been a shivering misery. I do think relative humidity has something to do with it. Altitude, too.
And then again, I was snowboarding on New Years Day here and it was 14 and I was quite well suited up and felt rally cold. So who the frunk knows.
Or … maybe biorhythms. Remember those? Ha.
HeleninEire
@Keith P.: I love Cole more than I can say…but that made me LOL. 😆
sab
@RevRick: That (circadian rhythms) is more likely. My year in north of England I had a friend from North Dakota, and he said that English winter, when it rarely even got below freezing, was the coldest winter of his life because of rhe high humidity. I felt the same moving from Florida to Ohio. Winter didn’t feel that much colder because the humidity was so much lower than in Florida.
Suzanne
Cole, you’re getting sick. Maybe just allergies (and they happen all winter there). Thats why you’re cold.
teezyskeezy
Okay I really nerded out on this dry vs. wet question and I found some empirical formulas and playing with them it seems that at 60F, it requires 70% humidity to feel hotter than 60F. Anything less feels cooler.
So Tempe at 60F probably feels several degrees *colder* than the true temperature because of the extreme dryness. That was the answer, whoever was saying it (Baud, Dan B.?)
So when I was thinking of how clammy fog feels on a 60 degree day, that wasn’t relevant because fog is supersaturation…that changes the ballgame on conduction of heat. Absent any actual condensation, relative humidity always seems to raise the apparent “feels-like” temperature. I was misled by misapplying my experience.
However, those of you thinking about freezing weather, seems it is true that humidity makes little difference then. The air is too dry at *any* relative humidity in freezing temperatures, so there’s only a very weak effect.
But if you go outside in the late afternoon to evening, the infrared radiation losses to a clear sky *do* make a difference to how cold it feels. It cools your skin the same way a clear night cools the grass to make dew or frost when the air temps would seem too warm for it. This can make outdoors feel colder than an indoors at the same temperature.
Joelle
@Geminid: hilarious and accurate!
SpaceUnit
Wait until it’s July and 116 degrees. Then you’ll really have something to bitch about.
And no slippers will save you.
UncleEbeneezer
@scav: Yup. Expectations are huge. 50 degrees in AZ in January is “holy shit it’s cold!” because most people don’t expect cold in AZ, even at that time of the year.
Bad Back
@Old School: my thoughts exactly
Mai Naem mobile
You may have had better insulation in your WV home. If you’re in one of the older homes in Tempe the insulation is really crappy even if the house is block. Also it’s cooler today because we’re expecting rain. Also what Suzanne says, you may be getting sick.
Another Scott
@Baud: +1
I nearly froze to death (not literally) waiting for my school bus in 35F weather as a kid in Georgia. -20F in Chicago didn’t suck as much heat out of me as that cold Georgia morning did.
Humidity also affects heat transfer between your skin and clothing.
It’s science, man!
Cheers,
Scott.
TeezySkeezy
@Another Scott: That reference is good. I was a little concerned to have (seemingly) discovered that relative humidity never makes a cool day seem colder…but apparently it does. You’ve saved my worldview on this matter, no joke. I could swear clammy days felt cold as hell compared to dry days sometimes.
But keep in mind for Cole, he seems to have been in a half naked state for these comparisons, so the clothing dampness wouldn’t be a factor.
dr. luba
As to slippers. Yes. You are getting old (not nearly as old as me, but……) and walking around in socks can be dangerous if you have any uncarpeted floors. I learned this the hard way, on a set of wooden stairs…..I am blessed with strong Ukrainian peasant woman bones, so only got bruised up but oh! was I ever sore.
Dangerman
Could be worse; he could have shared about dancing around in his Tighty Whitey’s, rocking out to Bob Seger, while using a candlestick for a microphone.
At least, I think it was a candlestick. Dear Heavens, let it have been a candlestick.
/risky
karen marie
@Mai Naem mobile: I doubt Cole is cold because he’s sick. I’m less than ten miles from where he is, I’m not sick, and I am FREEZING. Long pants, a long sleeve shirt, a heavy sweatshirt, and felt slippers. I’m FREEZING.
When people tell me how nice it is in AZ in the winter, I want to punch them. I’d rather live somewhere honest that has snow in the winter than this bullshit.
Mousebumples
Another vote for humidity being the culprit.
Unrelated – Addresses for Tom Suozzi (running to replace Santos in the House from NY) are available again at Postcards to Voters. I think someone had asked about that in an earlier thread today, so I figured I’d report an FYI for anyone with itchy GOTV muscles. 😉
Baby Mouse (just under 2 years, ftr) started running a fever today, so we’ll see if it’s flu/covid/rsv/something-something. Sigh.
catclub
Go to the Grand Canyon.
mrmoshpotato
Dunno. Have you tried walking around Tempe in just boxers and wool socks as a test?
NotMax
Have tried a variety of house slippers in recent years. Hands down the ones I’m most happy with are worth the slight extra moolah.
If the limited sizes at the link aren’t right for you, there are other styles in other sizes if you click on the “Go to our store” link there. They run true to size, and might seem snug when first slip your tootsies into them but the real leather (albeit from sheep) will stretch and conform quickly.
Another Scott
@Mousebumples: 🙋♂️
Thanks.
Best of luck to Baby Mouse!
Cheers,
Scott.
Mousebumples
@Another Scott: Appreciate it, thanks! 🤞
Geminid
@scav:
Perhaps the most significant finding from this science project. May be a good rotating tag, too.
Mel
@Baud: Seconded.
Don
I dunno. I lived in Las Vegas for fifteen years. For some reason, cold in LV was colder than Boston. Forty degrees in LV and I was looking for more clothing. In MPLS, I didn’t put the liner in my overcoat until it was below zero. Something about the desert that makes cold, well, COLD!
SteveinPHX
Baud had it right.
mardam
“… walk around my house shirtless with just boxers and wool socks with my thermostat set on 60 at home when it is 12 degrees out?”
Thanks for the visual, Cole. I can see I’ll be losing all that holiday weight quickly this year.
Sherparick
@John Cole: Definitely “Balloon Juice after Dark” material.
Paul in KY
John, it’s the theory of relativity.
Paul in KY
@Another Scott: Chances are you were dressed more for the weather up in Chitown, as opposed to GA.