how does windchill effect palm trees, bananas and other plants? for example if the tempurature is -10 but the windchill is at - 20 ( this is celcius) woudl the plants that are not hardy past - 10 die becasue the tempurature in the wind is - 20?
Windchill is the rate of increased cooling that a wind imposes on an object at 37°C (i.e., human body temperature). Since plants are at the ambient temperature, not warmer, windchill has no effect on them. What does matter with plants is wind desiccation, where the inreased wind speed enhances water evaporation, drying the plants out. This can cause windburn, and is a common problem: when a plant is below freezing, it cannot replace water removed from the foliage. The amount of windburn depends on air humidity as well as wind speed.
so when people wrap up the trunk / stems on there trees or what not it isnt jst to keep them warm its to keep the warter from evaporating out of the plant basicaly. pretty interesting how the windchill is basicaly non exsistant for plants but for living animals its a different story
Windchill is a factor based on comfort level. So if it's 4 degrees celcius and the wind is blowing 20 knots, it may feel like -5c but it is still +4c. Therefore, a glass of water will never freeze under the same conditions, but will evaporate quicker. Cheers, LPN. PS - I sometimes wondered why wind chill is never used in summer reporting. A 25c afternoon can feel like 20c degrees with a steady ocean breeze.
I suspect it becomes very hard to calculate due to the interaction with Humidex. At cold temperatures (ie. <-5ºC), the humidex factor (or evaporative cooling) is a relatively small percentage of the windchill factor and can be effectively ignored. At hot tempertures (ie. >30ºC), the windchill factor is a relatively small percentage of the humidex factor at normal atmospheric relative humidities (50% to 90%) and can be effectively ignored. Problems arise in the moderate temperatures or in climates with extreme humidities (ie. dry desert) because the humidex and windchills start competing with each other an in colder temperatures, higher humidity seems to make it feel colder. There is a range of temperature for which the weather service does not even report windchill or humidex because of these interactions though it is a narrower range than the -5ºC to 30ºC that I suggest. Simon
so i guess it depends on where you live also liek if your in bc the windchill wont be as bad as it would be in say regina even if they were are they same relitive tempurature and humidity?
Another reason people will wrap tree trunks is to keep them from splitting. Thin barked trees (this happens with Japanese Maples and young fruit bearing tree alot here) will warm up on the sunny side while the temperature everywhere else on the trunnk will remain cold. This causes big splits in the bark. The wrapping keeps the bark shaded from the sun. It can also help keep rodents from chewing the bark during the winter.
Candianplant.....I delayed in answering your post because only word I couldn't figure out was "liek" was & felt it might have been integral to the post? Now that I have seen it in another post (in context) and realise you meant 'like', I know what you mean. Windchill is a calculation utilizing temperature & windspeed. It does not include relative humidity and is not calculated for temperatures above 5ºC. One of the reasons that it is not calculated for temperatures above 5ºC, is due to the influence relative humidty has on the windchill effect at temperatures above 5ºC. Even below 5ºC, RH has some noticeable effect, though it will diminish as the wind speed increases. The answer to the regarding BC vs. Regina question is as such....for the same RH and temperature, the apparent (how it feels) windchill & calculated windchill (what weatheroffice says) will be the same. If the RH differs between the two locales, the apparent windchill will be greater in the 'wetter' locale (with a diminishing effect with both declining temperature & increasing windspeed) but the calculated windchill will still be the same. Simon
