<p>This question is inspired by the book <a href="https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0898866871" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Minus 148 Degrees</a>, which is a true story about a group of mountaineers that got stuck at a high elevation on Denali during a storm and survived 6 days in what is described as "-148F with wind chill". I am told the winds attained speeds in excess of 150mph.</p>

<p>I have made a spreadsheet using the modern wind chill formula to make some estimates about the base temperature, but I understand that the way wind chill is estimated has changed over time and would not have been the same when the book was written and originally published in the late 1960's.</p>

<p><strong>What would be the likely candidate(s) method used at that time to estimate the -148F wind chill temperature?</strong></p>

<p>The wind chill calculator <a href="http://www.onlineconversion.com/windchill.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer" title="wind chill calculator">here</a> includes a "pre-2001" formula, but that formula seems broken for the range we are looking at. Putting in a higher speed (ie: going from 150 to 160) produces a <em>warmer</em> wind-chill, so I don't think we can trust that, so I doubt such a formula would have been used. However, that formula would suggest -122F @ 150mph = -148F wind-chill, which does not seem right - planet record cold in Antarctic winter is only a little colder than that. So I'm skeptical of this "pre-2001 formula" as being the method used to determine the -148F estimate.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-28T15:47:04.747Z
Did you get the -122F and 150 MPH figures from the book?  How did they measure this?
Spencer
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-28T19:51:49.960Z
@Spencer I got 150MPH from a different Q&A on outdoors.SE, where a description of a book on some website mentioned 150+MPH winds. But really, I was just throwing numbers into the formula to try it out, and the formula seems invalid in this wind-chill range. I was just showing how the "pre-2001 formula" used on that site does not help.
Aaron
<temperature>
What method would be used to estimate a wind-chill temperature in U.S. 1969?
Aaron
# What method would be used to estimate a wind-chill temperature in U.S. 1969?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-06-28)

This question is inspired by the book [Minus 148 Degrees](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0898866871), which is a true story about a group of mountaineers that got stuck at a high elevation on Denali during a storm and survived 6 days in what is described as "-148F with wind chill". I am told the winds attained speeds in excess of 150mph.

I have made a spreadsheet using the modern wind chill formula to make some estimates about the base temperature, but I understand that the way wind chill is estimated has changed over time and would not have been the same when the book was written and originally published in the late 1960's.

**What would be the likely candidate(s) method used at that time to estimate the -148F wind chill temperature?**

The wind chill calculator [here](http://www.onlineconversion.com/windchill.htm "wind chill calculator") includes a "pre-2001" formula, but that formula seems broken for the range we are looking at. Putting in a higher speed (ie: going from 150 to 160) produces a *warmer* wind-chill, so I don't think we can trust that, so I doubt such a formula would have been used. However, that formula would suggest -122F @ 150mph = -148F wind-chill, which does not seem right - planet record cold in Antarctic winter is only a little colder than that. So I'm skeptical of this "pre-2001 formula" as being the method used to determine the -148F estimate.

**Tags:** temperature

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Did you get the -122F and 150 MPH figures from the book?  How did they measure this?  
> **username_0**: @username_1 I got 150MPH from a different Q&A on outdoors.SE, where a description of a book on some website mentioned 150+MPH winds. But really, I was just throwing numbers into the formula to try it out, and the formula seems invalid in this wind-chill range. I was just showing how the "pre-2001 formula" used on that site does not help.  

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## 0 answers

