There are numerous calculators available on the web that give you either a heat or a wind chill index.

The goal of this project is to:

• Allow calculation of weather comfort index in a single input form with three parameters:
  • temperature (df)
  • relative humidity (%)
  • wind speed (mph)
• Provide a simple, intuitive user interface
• Combine existing, proven algorithms to produce result
• Produce plots of both heat and wind chill indexes

The design in pseudo-R code is as follows:

comfortIndex = function(temperature,relativeHumidty,windSpeed) {
    if (temperature<=40) {ci = windChill (temperature,windSpeed) }
    else {ci =heatIndex (Temperature,relativeHumidity)}
    ci }    

• WindChill function is derived from the National Weather Service (NWS) with description found at http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ffc/?n=wci
• heatIndex function and overall algorithm design is located at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3801457/figure/f3
• Methodology behind the heat index is at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3801457/#r39
• Does not address wind cooling at high temperatures or high humidity at low temperatures