Weather guesser guide

First it was here, then it was retracted. Now the "U.S. Weather Bureau's wind chill factor" is back. This means there are millions of younger folks who don't know the story behind this "chill factor" business. Today's column will help everyone see the situation clearly.

The official National Weather Bureau "Wind Chill Factor" was developed almost fifty years back by a Federal meteorologist who absent-mindedly wandered out in the snow without his clothes on. Under normal circumstances he might have been reprimanded but lucky for him he observed that fingers, toes and whatever, froze quicker if the wind was blowing. Meteorologists never see anything, they "observe." Upon returning to his station and getting everything thawed out, he wrote a 368-page report on his observations and was promoted to head meteorologist.

Intrigued by their fellow weather guessers startling new theory, other devoted meteorologists advanced this amazing discovery by taking off their clothes and going out in the blizzards and calms each day during an entire winter. They eventually observed they could freeze exposed things s quickly at 10 below in a 20 mile per hour wind as they could at 20 below with no wind. That is why the official explanation of "Wind Chill Factor" expressly says it is a measurement as it affects "bare" human skin.

It is also how the wind chill became an important part of our daily government weather forecasts from September through February. No one knows how many millions of lives have been saved by the daily release of this vital scientific information…especially in underdeveloped areas such as North Dakota where there is no indoor plumbing.

What you may not know is, when spring came the meteorologists really missed preparing that extra bit of data in their daily reports. There was something missing from their lives, so they came up with the opposite of Wind Chill Factor.

The new discovery was named "Ultra Violet Index" (UVI) and was computed daily by the National Weather Service and dispatched to the farthest reaches of the nation to anyone who wanted it and even to thousands who didn't.

"Ultra Violet Index" is the exposure level of sun on bare skin. The National Weather Service somehow got hooked in with the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) who they say makes the UVI ratings. It is all pretty hush hush. For those who don't know about EPA, that is the Federal Bureau that rates the Flathead among the ten most air polluted counties in the United States, fights the use of pepper spray on grizzly bears, and does other equally important things. With the EPA involved, we should take the UVI Index just as seriously as if it made sense.

UVI was perfected by meteorologists going to nudist camps and studying how rapidly newcomers got a sunburn at various times of the day under varying cloud conditions, etcetera. It is also known that many of them went to nude beaches and such places as Waikiki where a large bikini is three large band-aids. They observed when the sun was directly overhead and there were no clouds, people tended to burn faster than they did in the early morning and evening on cloudy days. Their night studies showed no measurable UVI but considerable amounts of unrelated mating activity, except among those who had received severe burns during the day. They cited this observation as another valid reason for active people getting the latest UVI information, before doing any "laying" on the beach.

The meteorologists feed in the factors to the computer and out rolls the UVI ratings, which they hope, will become as popular and confusing as Wind Chill. They want North Dakotans to get a UVI reading before making the trip to the outhouse. They feel that serious streakers and mooners will find the info helpful in avoiding radiation burns.

To give an idea of how it works, let's imagine on a July day our 3:45 p.m. "Ultraviolet Index" came rolling in on the radio station's teletype giving a reading for 60 US cities. Highest reading was an 11 for Honolulu followed by a 10 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Los Angeles had a 7 and Miami an 8. Lowest was Anchorage at 3. This gives you some idea of how valuable the UVI concept can be. Just one glance at the report and we know the Caribbean Islands and Hawaii are better places to get a suntan than Alaska.

One thing is bothering me. Billings is the only Montana city listed on the UVI reports; however, if enough of us write our Congressmen perhaps we will one day have them for even Essex and Olney. Until then, we folks in Northwest Montana must try to get by on luck and common sense…like we did before the "Wind Chill" revelation, when the government finally broke down and told us that a stiff breeze intensifies the cold for anyone…sitting naked in a snow bank.