“Feels Like” / heat index
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Hi,
I have been Dark Sky user the past few years. They’re being axed by apple in Dec so am searching for a new weather app. The features that made that app so special to me were the “feels like” temperature that factors in humidity and the hourly precipitation chance feature.
Living in a high humidity area the difference of 80-85 degrees with high humidity vs no humidity is the difference between exercising or doing things outside that day safely. This app very poorly displays the ability to figure out the “feels like” heat index temperature… which is surprising considering how feature rich this app is. Please consider adding such a useful feature!
Such features really help precisely plan out a day.
Thanks,
Adam -
@adam-tanner
Hi, you can try using the Wet-bulb temperature layer (see more layer if necessary). When the wet-bulb temp is close to human body temperature the weather conditions may be hard and dangerous.
https://www.weather.gov/tsa/wbgt
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need-to-worry-about-the-wet-bulb-temperatureWet-bulb temp is available as a layer with the picker, but not in Basic and Meteogram tables.
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@idefix37 Thanks for pointing this out. I’ll definitely use this metric as it sounds more useful than heat index. So there’s no way for it to forecast this metric over the day in windy? It’s only for that moment in time?
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@adam-tanner
This parameter is not shown in meteogram tables and so you can’t see its future changes along hours and days at a glance for a location. You need to play the timeline slider of the map. -
@idefix37 the more I look into this the more I’m confused. It says the wet bulb temp in The Sahara desert right now is 67 (19.5C) despite the regular temperature being 113 (45C). According to wet bulb charts that is more than safe to exercise in. That can’t be right?
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@adam-tanner
47°C is really very high temperature, but at same time Relative humidity is only 7%, it is very low and so the wet bulb temperature is not high. So doing some exercise would be very hard, but not as it could be with the same temperature and high humidity.
Consider in USA 2 location at same temperature, one in a dry area and the other in a wet one, you’ll see that wet bulb temperature will be quite different and will express the temperature + humidity discomfort. -
Wanted to provide some information since it looks like no one has implemented a heat index plugin here. After moving away from the Gulf Coast part of Texas I have less need to look at heat index but I definitely see why it is justified. Back when I lived there, I'd look at windy and wunderground for the forecasts.
W(eather)underground had good heat index info and good information in its line charts, windy just about everything else, especially the weather comparisons!
However, seeing that this is a feature request, I would say that only using windy for event planning in a hot and varially humid area is a bit cumbersome. This is multiply so because there is no humidity information in the rain/temperature line chart and so it remains to use the slider and manually check the values for either humidity/ dew point/wet bulb and check that the temperature is also high for this time. Note: it could be that there is a way to add to the line chart through a UI setting but I do not know of it. This contrasts with the much smoother experience of looking at a line chart.
An example forecast from what looks like quite a humid place from weather underground:
https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/ITEKNA1 -
@punyidea It is really perplexing why a humidex/windchill/feels-like layer has not been implemented here.
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@jasons47 Having moved not too far from Prague (at least not farther than 500k), I can sort of understand a little bit why it hasn't been a top priority! Thermal discomfort from high humidity and temps is nowhere near as bad over here. And it seems like they really want to focus on their niche of getting good wind forecasts for sailors and paragliders.
However I do agree that it is a big gain in useability for other users in less similar climates, for relatively little effort.
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@punyidea It is also a standard feature of like every other weather app.
