Children who ride the bus to school often venture out before the sun comes up, and today they will need extra layers, coats, hats, gloves and scarves because of an arctic cold front expected to push wind chills below zero.
The National Weather Service issued a wind chill advisory Wednesday to warn residents in the northernmost counties of Arkansas to protect against dangerously cold conditions, especially between midnight and noon today.
Wind chill is a calculation that describes the combined effect of the wind and cold temperatures on exposed skin. Faster wind speeds result in lower wind chills.
“We’ll have low temperatures in the single digits and lower teens that in combination with winds of 15 to 20 mph and some higher gusts will result in some wind chills below zero,” said Joe Sellers, a meteorologist for the service’s Tulsa office.
The wind chill advisory for today follows a wind chill warning the National Weather Service issued Jan. 6 for Northwest Arkansas that coincided with the “polar vortex” event, Sellers said. That winter storm pushed wind chills into the negative 20s, Sellers said.
Weather reports for Fayetteville show lows of 5 degrees on Jan. 5, minus 3 degrees on Jan. 6 and minus 2 degrees on Jan. 7, he said. The service does not recordwind chills, he said.
Extreme cold temperatures cause concern for health, especially for children and older adults, and can cause water pipes to freeze and burst.
In Fayetteville, about 5,000 students ride the bus to school, with earliest pickup times at 6:15 a.m. for elementary and middle school children who live in the farthest corners of the district, spokesman Alan Wilbourn said.
Wilbourn reminded parents to prepare for cold mornings as if their children are Randy in A Christmas Story, who complains he is so bundled up he can’t put his arms down. He suggested that parents dress children in layers and consider allowing them to wait inside a heated car until the bus arrives.
In Rogers schools, principals were asked Wednesday to remind students to dress warmly today because of cold temperatures and the wind chill forecast, spokesman Ashley Siwiec said. About 6,000 children ride the bus in Rogers.
When the body is exposed to such cold temperatures for as much as 20 to 30 minutes, body temperature can fall from a normal 98.6 degrees to lower than 95 degrees, the temperature when hypothermia starts to occur, said Dr. Joseph Jensen, a trauma surgeon and associate professor of surgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.
“Weather this cold is unpredictable,” Jensen said.
In mild cases of hypothermia, treatment involves warming the person up by taking him indoors, allowing him to change into dry clothes if his clothing is wet and giving him hot liquids, he said. In more severe cases, such as when a person can’t think or speak clearly or when he stops shivering despite the cold, that person may need treatment in a hospital.
Those who develop hypothermia sometimes will have frostbite, which occurs when hands, feet and the tip of the nose or ears are frozen after exposure to severe cold, Jensen said. While the onset offrostbite may not be painful, the rewarming process can be, he said.
“The best thing that can be done is prevention,” Jensen said. “Avoid exposure tothat cold of an environment. That’s not always possible, so have proper outdoor wear.”
He suggests wearing layers of clothing and giving extra attention to parts of the body that aren’t usually covered. He advises wearing gloves and ski masks.
Children waiting for a school bus should be under adult supervision until they get onto the bus, Jensen said.
Adults who know they will be outside often will wear extra clothing, but adults who are used to walking a short distance may not be as prepared, Jensen said. He suggests commuters take along extra clothing, gloves and a charged cellphone in case of an emergency, such as a flat tire.
Homeowners also should take care to keep garagedoors completely closed, said Kari Mayes, who serves as a dispatcher for Mayes Plumbing & Heating in Springdale. Open garage doors caused pipes to freeze for some of their customers during the winter storm at the beginning of January.
Mayes estimated that she received at least 50 extra calls the week of Jan. 6.
Many homeowners requested service because they couldn’t get water because their pipes had frozen, Mayes said. The next day, calls continued for assistance with thawing pipes, but the plumbing company also began receiving calls for broken pipes and water leaks that occurred when the pipes began to thaw.
“When people don’t have water, we do that as an emergency,” Mayes said. “We fitin what we could with our regular customers … We’re finally catching up.”
Her husband, Nathan Mayes, also suggested letting faucets drip because pipes are less likely to freeze with water moving through them, she said. Water hoses should be taken off of outside faucets that can freeze and burst inside the house.
The weather service forecasts a high today of 18 degrees. Winds of 10 to 15 mph and gusts of 30 mph will keep wind chill values between 1 and minus 9. Temperatures will fall to around 3 degrees on Friday morning with wind chill values between zero and minus 5.
The coldest recorded temperature for Fayetteville was minus 18 degrees in 2011 and minus 15 degrees in 1899 for Fort Smith, Sellers said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 01/23/2014