Brrr, Cold Outside. How Cold? Depends.

By Fred Bruning

Feb. 1, 2026

Much about modern life is exasperating – six-digit verification, TV psoriasis ads, cat videos – but little beats that seasonal sensation, the “wind chill factor.”

With all that’s happening, you say, the wind chill factor?

Yes.

But, first:

An awful storm swept across the nation last week.

Boy, did we get socked – a foot, easy.

Usually, I shovel.

“Cut it out, Dad,” my four children scream via text, email, phone. “No matter how you dress, it’s not 1975 anymore. Give it up.”

If they had a drone, the children would drop pamphlets over the neighborhood with pictures of me leaning on a shovel.

“ALERT: This man is not authorized to clear his driveway. Notify authorities immediately. Do not approach.”

Our friend next door found someone to dig out her property and ours, a two-fer.

Guy named Sal arrived mid-afternoon, took a look at conditions on our narrow street and quirky little lot, and said – um – see you soon, have to find a parking place.

Never came back. Sal, we hardly knew ye.

Our neighbor is a resourceful woman, who – get this – works both as a radiology technician and cabin attendant on private jets. She sends photos from travels far and wide – the Pacific Northwest, Caribbean, Wyoming, everywhere.

Before you know it, another contractor, Omar, was at our door. In a flash, he cleared the driveway and path to our tiny backyard, and beyond, to the recycling bin, essential for Wink, my wife, an environmental avenger who spares not a single bottle top or empty yogurt container.

Work at our house complete, Omar liberated the driveway of our neighbor who, by then, was airborne. She texted a photo from over the Hudson. Frozen.

We tipped the speedy shoveler extravagantly and signed him up for the next Arctic assault.

Dave Granlund cartoon via Google Images

Testimony above is in preparation for the serious matter at hand – the point, at last!

During the storm, television went nuts, of course, because people love weather stories – intrepid reporters standing in snowbanks or the middle of deserted streets, saying there are six inches already and plenty more to come, promise.

Prominent as well was discussion of wind chill factors, an exercise in relativism that might have drawn cheers from the Greek philosopher, Protagoras.

You recall Protagoras, very big in the fifth century (B.C.) and famous for saying “man is the measure of all things” to suggest everyone has his own truth. One version had to be judged against another. Certainty? Whose? Yours or mine?

No doubt mindful of relativist theory, CNN ran a scroll one day with wind chill readings from many shivering cities: 16 degrees in Louisville felt like 3. Dallas reported 17 but, hold on, that meant only 2.

Milwaukee, brrr, 11 degrees – minus 4 with wind included.

Chicago, 14 degrees, repurposed as a flat, frigid zero. Buffalo? Ten degrees yielded a minus 6. Minneapolis, yikes, 1 degree above zero, wind chill, minus 13!

Does this make sense?

Isn’t there almost always at least an occasional wind, even a gentle zephyr, that must be taken into consideration?

How do we know what a reading of 14 degrees feels like if most days there’s a vagrant breeze or wintry blast to make it “feel” otherwise? Where is the beginning, and the end?

In summer, it’s no better because of the “heat index” – a questionable temperature and humidity combo.

Eighty-six degrees on the thermometer? Remember 86 when you were a kid? Hot. Perfect. Head over to the public pool in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, for a dip. But if 86 suddenly was advertised as 102, Mom might say, no way, you’ll have a stroke, here’s an ice cube, sit by the fan, don’t move.

Is it wrong to yearn for a bit of agreement, a hint of accord in contentious times?

Whatever happened to eternal truths – no insider trading, no parking in handicapped spots, no stealing the crusty muffin top before your wife comes to breakfast.

Even right turn on red is iffy, if you ask me. Red is red, right?

Absolutism brings its own problems, of course.

I’m big on free speech except for people who talk in movies and arrive at the door selling fiber optics.

Anyway, it’s winter, dreary, frigid, long time to opening day at Citi Field, March 26, and then what?

Maybe 47 degrees that will feel like 39 owing to a gust off Flushing Bay, but it will be the Mets, for better or worse, win or lose, same as always, absolutely.

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Previous Invisible Ink posts at: https://fredbruning.substack.com/archive