IEM Daily Feature
Wednesday, 12 January 2011

Frequency of cold wind chills

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 05:52 AM


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wind chill calculated using the current equation
A bitter north west wind is blowing this morning and with temperatures in the single digits, wind chills are well into the negative range. The featured chart presents the number of hours per winter season that wind chills values below -20F were reported at the Des Moines and Sioux Falls airport. During every year, except one, Sioux Falls has had more hours below -20 than Des Moines. The chart does show that these bitter cold temperatures have been less common in the past ten years than the previous 30. The brutal winters of 1977 and 1978 show up prominently on the chart.

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Tags:   windchill