Upcoming winter weather forecasts will be missing a well-known cold weather term: “wind chill.”
The National Weather Service announced it will no longer issue public-facing wind chill warnings, watches and advisories, beginning this winter. Wind chill terms have been retired to clear up confusion surrounding weather warnings for the public, said Milwaukee-Sullivan NWS office meteorologist Benjamin Sheppard.
Previously, wind chill advisories and extreme cold advisories were issued separately, with the former based on the “wind chill” calculation ― which essentially considers both the air temperature and how cold it feels to humans and animals due to wind speeds ― and the latter based on air temperatures alone.
Now, NWS will only issue cold weather advisories, extreme cold watches and extreme cold warnings, using wind chill temperatures in-house to help determine these products. These advisories will be issued whether forecasted temperatures meet the wind chill or air temperature threshold for each category: