A few years ago in Canada, The Weather Network decided to stop reporting the Humidex under that name. Instead, they call it "Feels like", which seems in keeping with the general drift toward touchy-feely-ness of the times.
But from what I can tell, it is just the frickn humidex, showing a formulaic combination of humidity and temperature. [see this in Wikipaedia].
The humidex formula is as follows:[3]
The humidity adjustment effectively amounts to one Fahrenheit degree for every millibar by which the partial pressure of water in the atmosphere exceeds 10 millibars.
Yeah, ok. Whatever. I spent a few minutes trying to figure this stuff out (superficially, of course) when this morning I see that the current temperature in London, Ontario, is 22C* but according to The Weather Network [TWN]**, it feels like 30C.
No way this feels like 30C. There is a good, strong wind, and if anything it "feels like" 18C.
So I went to the Environment Canada website. That site tells me the current temperature is 22C, with a humidex reading of 30C. That makes more sense. After all, the "feels like" that TWN uses is just Environment Canada's humidex, so far as I can tell. The humidex name makes it clear that humidity is involved and that it is a computed index number. "Feels like" misleadingly tells us what we should expect the weather to feel like.
I'd hate to go out today, expecting "feels like" 30C and dressed for that, only to find that it actually feels like 18C or even cooler in the shade.
But, as is in keeping with their condescending paternal/maternal-isms, TWN gives us a number with a name that is far less informative than "Humidex".
Note that the same thing happens in the winter when temperature and wind are combined to give us "wind chill" which (to the best of my ability to discern) omits humidity from its calculation. The term "wind chill" at least tells that the wind and temperature are involved, unlike "feels like", for (as everyone on the prairies alleges) a dry cold doesn't feel as cold as a more humid cold.
Part of the problem is trying to devise an index number that is useful to many people. We see this in economics all the time: GDP, CPI, etc. are all indices that try to measure, combine, and reflect useful information, just as "humidex" and "wind chill" do that with temperature, humidity, and wind chill.
But my complaint here is not with the index. Rather it is with the term, "feels like".
*TWN, according my friends in Saskatchewan, means Toronto Weather Network, just as TSN means Toronto Sports Network. They have the sense that these networks focus far too much attention on Trono and not enough on the west.
** For new visitors to EclectEcon, a reminder that C=Canadian; F=Foreign
Apologies to TWN if I am mistaken. I doubt if I am, though.