Wind Chill

COMP 1010 Home > Back to Extra Labs

Introduction In Winnipeg, the wind can make the temperature even colder than it is without windchill. Write a program that uses input to read in an air temperature and a wind speed. Then, use the formula below to calculate and output the windchill. <math>T_{wc}=13.12 + 0.6215 T_a-11.37 V^{0.16} + 0.3965 T_a V^{0.16}\,\!</math> where <math>T_{wc}\,\!</math> is the wind chill index based on the Celsius scale, <math>T_a\,\!</math> is the air temperature in °C, and <math>V\,\!</math> is the air speed in km/h. Equation taken from Wikipedia which cites http://www.msc.ec.gc.ca/education/windchill/science_equations_e.cfm

Step 1: Get inputs/outputs needed to solve the problem

You will need the following variables in order to solve this problem.

• location - The location at which you want to calculate the windchill.
• temperatue - The temperature of your desired location
• windSpeed - The windSpeed at your desired location
• input - Used to prompt the user for input
• raw_input - Used to prompt the user for input
• windChill - The calculated wind chill of your desired location

Step 2: Write the program

 #######################################################################
#This program is used to calculate the wind chill of a desired location                                        

#input
location = raw_input("What is the location?")
temperature = input("What is the current temperature in Celsius?")
windSpeed = input("What is the wind speed in kms per hour?")

#calculate windchill
windchill = 13.12 + .6215*temperature- 11.37 * (windSpeed**0.16) + 0.3965 * temperature * (windSpeed ** 0.16)

#output 
print "\n\nLocation: " + location
print "Current Temperature: %f" % temperature + " Celsius"
print "Wind Speed:%02f " % windSpeed + " km/h"
print "Temperature with Windchill: %02f" % windchill
print "Programmed by A. Student"
print "**End of Program**" 

Step 3: Display the output of the program

 Location: Winnipeg
Current Temperature: -10.0 Celsius
Wind Speed: 30.0 km/h
Temperature with Windchill: -19.52049803338773
Programmed by A. Student
**End of Program** 

Step 4: Contrast with windChill program in Program a Day example

This Python program produces the same output as the Java WindChill program in Program-A-Day, but there are some differences which are described below.

• Python uses x**y as its Math power operator whereas Java uses Math.pow(x,y)
• Python does not perform conversion to other types but Java uses for instance double x = Double.parseDouble(y) to convert y to double data type
• In the print statements, Python specifies the format(%f = float data type) of some variable.