WINTER STORMS

Winter storms are considered deceptive killers because most deaths are indirectly related to the storm: People die in traffic accidents on icy roads, people die of heart attacks while shoveling snow, people die of hypothermia from prolonged exposure to cold.

WHAT MAKES A WINTER STORM?

Cold Air: Below freezing temperatures in the clouds and near the ground are necessary to make snow and/or ice.

Lift: Something to raise the moist air to form the clouds and cause precipitation. An example of lift is warm air colliding with cold air and being forced to rise over the cold dome. The boundary between the warm and cold air masses is called a front. Another example of lift is air flowing up a mountain side.

Moisture: To form clouds and precipitation. Air blowing across a body of water, such as a large lake or the ocean, is an excellent source of moisture.

COLD

Frostbite is damage to body tissue caused by that tissue being frozen. Frostbite causes a loss of feeling and a white or pale appearance in extremities, such as fingers, toes, ears, or the tip of the nose. If symptoms are detected, get medical help immediately! If you must wait for help, slowly re-warm affected areas.

Hypothermia (Low Body Temperature): Warning Signs are uncontrollable shivering, memory loss, disorientation, incoherence, slurred speech, drowsiness, and apparent exhaustion.

Detection: Take the person's temperature. If below 95 degrees F, immediately seek medical care! If medical help is not available, begin warming the person slowly. Warm the body core first. If needed, use your own body heat to help. Get the person into dry clothing, and wrap them in a warm blanket covering the head and neck. Do not give the person alcohol, drugs, coffee, or any hot beverage or food; warm broth is better. Do not warm extremities (arms and legs) first! This drives the cold blood toward the heart and can lead to heart failure.

WIND CHILL

A person out of doors loses much more body heat in a windy environment than in a calm atmosphere. As the wind speed increases, so does the loss of body heat. The National Weather Service has developed a useful tool to help determine the threat presented to people out of doors by the combination and interaction of wind and temperature during cold weather: the Wind Chill Chart. A Wind Chill Chart determines an apparent temperature, i.e., how cold it feels to a person exposed to a given combination of wind speed and temperature. The body's reaction to this apparent temperature is essentially the same as it would react to an equivalent measured temperature.

To determine the wind chill, select the temperature at the top of the chart and the wind speed along the left side of the chart. The place where these two intersect is the wind chill. At wind chill temperatures indicated in bold print, frostbite occurs in 15 minutes or less.

 Back To Top