Public Opinion Research on Wind Chill in Canada

Environment Canada's Meteorological Service of Canada conducted several public opinion research studies in 1999 to assess the public's and media's understanding of wind chill information and terminology, to determine the need for and uses of such information, and to probe on the preferences for various methods of communicating this information.

Overall, Canadians find wind chill information useful. They clearly recognize the impact that wind chill has on their personal comfort and they use this information to take action. However, while there is a good understanding of wind chill on a superficial level, there are misconceptions, particularly about wind chill's effect on objects such as cars (half of respondents felt that a car could cool below the air temperature due to wind chill), or with the general notion of wind chill versus temperature, since close to 40% incorrectly said that on a windy day, even sheltered from the wind, they would feel colder than the air temperature.

The results also indicated that equivalent temperature is the most commonly heard terminology for wind chill, and the preference of most Canadians and the media. Cooling rates, expressed in watts per square metre (W/m²) or simply using the number without the units, remained a largely unfamiliar and misunderstood method of expressing wind chill for most, except in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Even in Canada's North, where wind chill represents a significant danger, cooling rates were not well known.

A more extensive report on this public opinion research was produced for the April 2000 Internet workshop on wind chill.