Feeling The Cold

For some odd reason lately, the media is making comment when temperatures are announced, that state the temperature and immediately after, tell us how the cold "feels". A quote might be: "It is three degrees below zero outside, but the 'wind chill' makes if feel like twenty below." Each time I hear this kind of nonsense, I wonder what it actually means in terms of truth. For example, I was playing cards the other day with a number of women, some with coats and jackets on, cards in hand and in the background heaters blazing. They were convinced that the hostess's room was too cold for them. Apart from their rudeness in leaving their outerwear on while in someone else's home, albeit they could have worn long underwear instead, I was aware that it felt perfectly normal to me. It is a fact that everyone has unique temperature tolerances. It reminded me that when I hear such conjectural observances on my radio or television that a certain temperature is given but "feels like" something else, the pronouncement is based on pure speculation. It has no meaning or factual basis whatsoever. It made me wonder if the public media stations, have human individuals go outdoors in the cold and then report back how cold they felt in the wind with exact readings to report. Then again, if so, how did they determine the temperature it made them feel? Or is there a robot set at a certain tolerance level, erected outside media centres in the wind, with  thermometers dangling here and there that send messages back into the control room, such as "I am as cold as ..."? When you really begin to think about it, the whole scenario of reporting how cold feels, is unscientific as well as rather hilarious. I have been in a northern capital where actual temperatures are twenty degrees below freezing and in wind. I can tell you, I was far too occupied keeping a survival body temperature at a bus stop in Edmonton, to worry about what the cold "felt like". I was as cold as I have ever been, and if someone had  told me how it felt thermometer-wise,  it wouldn't have meant a thing.