Cat on a Windy Day

Wind…

Phoebe: Sorry, on windy days, I get a little grumpy. Feelings of being unsettled, you know?

Jennifer: Absolutely. The noise, the wind howling and rising and falling. The change of plans because of unpredictability.

Phoebe: Not to mention the cat. She seems unsettled too. Wind starts blowing. Runs inside the house. Jumps into the basket. Sleeps until the wind drops.

__________

Voice-over

Wind can overwhelm the senses, to call upon a technical analogy – conflicting data from the sensors. Something out there bigger than us. Affecting our reactions.

•       Primal alarm reaction: fight or flight. 
•      Anxiety or even phobia of wind (ancraophobia or anemophobia) triggered. 
•       Elevated levels of stress hormone cortisol. 
•       Drops in barometric pressure activating the superior vestibular nucleus (SVN), a part of the brain that controls balance and perception. 
•       Air ions might change serotonin levels triggering irritability, fatigue and headaches.

Humidity and dew point

Feeling uncomfortably warm…

Runner: Must be the humidity.

Meteorologist: Partly, yes.

Runner: But it’s the moisture in the atmosphere, isn’t it?

Meteorologist: Dew point. At a cooler dew point like 6 degrees Celsius you feel comfortable, but if the dew point rises to 18 or 20 degrees C you feel sweaty and uncomfortable.

Runner: I’ve seen dew point on the weather forecast.

Meteorologist: Dew point. The atmospheric temperature when water droplets condense and form dew. There’s a formula which takes account of pressure and humidity. Dew point is a better measure to predict what to wear.

_________

Voice-over

The actual formula is Td = T - ((100 - RH)/5.) where Td is dew point temperature (in degrees Celsius), T is observed temperature (in degrees Celsius), and RH is relative humidity (in percent). This table sums up how dew point relates to how you feel.