Wind Chill Calculator
Find the 'feels like' temperature in cold, windy weather.
Results update as you type.
How it works
Wind chill is the 'feels like' temperature on a cold day, capturing how wind makes frigid air feel even colder against your skin. This wind chill calculator uses the official National Weather Service formula, which was revised in 2001 to better reflect how quickly exposed human skin loses heat. As wind speeds up, it carries away the warm boundary layer your body maintains, so heat escapes faster and the effective temperature drops well below the thermometer reading. This matters because wind chill is a direct measure of frostbite and hypothermia risk. On a still day, cold is uncomfortable but manageable; add a stiff wind and exposed skin can freeze in minutes. Meteorologists issue wind chill advisories and warnings on this basis, and workers, commuters, and outdoor enthusiasts use it to decide how to dress and how long they can safely stay outside. A wind chill calculator turns raw temperature and wind readings into an actionable danger level. The formula works by modelling heat loss from bare skin as a function of both temperature and wind speed, with wind's effect tapering off at higher speeds. Because it reflects physiology rather than just physics, the wind chill can be many degrees below the actual air temperature. Anyone facing cold, blustery conditions relies on a wind chill calculator to understand the true severity of the weather and protect against cold-weather injury.
WC = 35.74 + 0.6215·T − 35.75·V^0.16 + 0.4275·T·V^0.16 (NWS)
Wind chill expresses how cold the air feels because wind strips away the thin layer of warm air your body heats around its skin, accelerating heat loss and making a cold day feel colder. The National Weather Service formula raises wind speed to the 0.16 power because heat loss rises quickly at first and then levels off as the wind increases. The temperature and wind terms combine to model the actual rate of heat loss from exposed skin, producing an equivalent 'feels like' temperature that captures the danger of frostbite better than the thermometer alone.
Source:NWS wind chill temperature index (2001)
We review all our tools from time to time to ensure accuracy.
Worked example
How to use this calculator
- 1
Enter your values
Enter air temperature and wind speed.
- 2
Adjust the options
Fine-tune any options to match your situation.
- 3
Read your result
Wind chill updates instantly as you type — no button to press.
Frequently asked questions
How does wind make cold feel colder?
Your body warms a thin layer of air right against your skin, which acts as insulation. Wind constantly blows that warm layer away and replaces it with cold air, forcing your body to keep reheating fresh air and losing heat faster. The stronger the wind, the quicker this heat loss, which is why a windy cold day feels far more biting than a calm one at the same temperature.
Does wind chill affect objects or only people?
Wind chill describes how cold the air feels to exposed human skin, based on the rate of heat loss from a warm body. Inanimate objects like car radiators or water pipes cannot cool below the actual air temperature no matter how hard the wind blows, because they generate no heat of their own. Wind speeds their cooling toward the air temperature but never past it, so wind chill applies to living, heat-producing bodies.
At what wind chill does frostbite become a risk?
The National Weather Service warns that frostbite can occur on exposed skin within about 30 minutes when the wind chill falls to around minus 18 degrees Fahrenheit, and within just a few minutes at minus 40 and below. The colder the wind chill, the faster skin freezes. Cover exposed skin, limit time outdoors, and watch for numbness or waxy white patches that signal the earliest stages of frostbite.
Why does the formula only apply in cold weather?
The National Weather Service wind chill formula is defined for temperatures at or below 50 degrees Fahrenheit and wind speeds above about 3 miles per hour, because wind chill is only meaningful when the air is cold enough to draw heat from the body. In warm conditions, moving air feels cooling and pleasant rather than dangerous, so a different concept, the heat index, is used to describe hot-weather comfort instead.
What units does this calculator use?
This calculator uses Fahrenheit for temperature and miles per hour for wind speed, matching the National Weather Service formula. If your temperature is in Celsius, convert it by multiplying by 1.8 and adding 32, and convert wind speed from kilometres per hour to miles per hour by dividing by 1.609. The resulting wind chill is reported in Fahrenheit, the standard unit for United States cold-weather advisories.