Iowans will hear some new terminology when the winds of winter start to blow.
National Weather Service meteorologist Chad Hahn says the agency is abandoning a few familiar terms in favor of language that’s a little more direct.
“You may be familiar with the wind chill warning, the wind chill watch, those are going to become extreme cold warnings and extreme cold watches,” Hahn says, “and similarly, for the wind chill advisory, that’s going to be rebranded as a cold weather advisory.”
If the air temperature is ten-below-zero, that’s quite frigid whether there’s a breeze or not, so Hahn says it makes sense to have an alternative to wind chill advisories when it’s not windy.
“It’s all going to fall under this umbrella of extreme cold,” Hahn says. “Cold is cold regardless of whether it’s blowing 50 miles per hour or if the winds are calm, you still have the same risk outside if you’re exposed for long periods of time.”
The term “wind chill” isn’t going away, as Hahn says it remains very useful during the winter months to describe what the air temperature feels like with a combination of cold temperatures and sustained winds.
“We are going to continue to use wind chills. In fact, the criteria is still going to be driven by the ‘feels like’ temperature, the apparent temperature which wind chill is part of,” Hahn says. ” On the warm side, we deal with the ‘feels like’ temperature as the heat index.”
It’s possible we’ll hear about the heat index again in a few days, as the forecast calls for parts of Iowa to see unseasonably warm high temperatures in the low 90s by the weekend.
