Wind chill scale has Meadville, Allegheny College connection

Feb. 2—When you hear a winter weather forecast, wind chill often is mentioned, but rarely mentioned is the connection of the wind chill scale to Meadville and Allegheny College.

Paul A. Siple, a 1932 graduate of Allegheny who became a decorated geographer and Antarctic explorer, developed what he termed "wind chill" in 1939.

Siple and Charles Passel, another Antarctic explorer, conducted experiments on how long it took water to freeze in various air and wind conditions.

The two were part of Adm. Richard E. Byrd's third Antarctic expedition, which officially was known as the United States Antarctic Service Expedition 1939-41.

Wind chill temperature is how cold people and animals feel when outside, according to the National Weather Service.

The wind chill scale is used to determine how fast frostbite — a condition when body tissue freezes — can happen.

Wind chill is based on the rate of heat loss from exposed skin caused by wind and cold, according to the National Weather Service.

As the wind increases, it draws heat from the body, driving down skin temperature and eventually the internal body temperature. The wind makes it feel much colder. If the temperature is 0 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind is blowing at 15 miles per hour, the wind chill is -19 degrees Fahrenheit. At that wind chill temperature, exposed skin may freeze in 30 minutes.

"It's something we use every winter — it is pretty huge." said Tom Atkins, chief meteorologist with JET 24/Fox 66 TV in Erie. "It's part of our local weather forecast."

Siple has deep connections to both northwestern Pennsylvania and multiple Antarctic expeditions, authoring several books about his experiences.

Born in Montpelier, Ohio, in 1908, he and his family moved to Erie when he was 10 years old. He then joined the Boy Scouts of America around age 12. Siple had earned 59 merit badges by the time he became an Eagle Scout in 1923. He graduated from Erie's Central High School in 1926.

He entered Allegheny College in the fall of 1927, but after completing his first year he was selected by Byrd to go on the admiral's first Antarctic expedition in 1928.

Byrd wanted to include a Boy Scout on the expedition, and a nationwide contest was held. Out of 826,000 Boy Scouts in the country, Siple was one of six finalists chosen for a final evaluation by the Boy Scouts' national office and was selected.

After the initial expedition returned in 1930, Siple went on to earn his bachelor's degree in biology from Allegheny in 1932 — after just two additional years of study.

Sipple found time to write two books: "A Boy Scout with Byrd," published in 1931, and "Exploring at Home," published in 1932.

"He (Siple) was chosen from thousands of Scouts around the country and that's amazing in and of itself," Atkins said. "And the fact that he's from our area and came up with the (wind chill) equation that been used (regularly) since the 1970s."

Siple then when back to the Antarctic with other Byrd-led expeditions in 1933-1935 and 1939-41 and in between earned his Ph.D. in geography in 1939 from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

In all, Siple was part of six Antarctic expeditions throughout his career — including all five by Byrd.

"He's unknown and yet in front of our face," Josh Sherretts, executive director of the Crawford County Historical Society, said of Siple. "He's our connection to that era of big international explorers when there were places on Earth to 'discover.'

"It's a definite relevance today in terms of the scientific and mathematic contributions he made that we see in our daily lives," Sherretts said.

During World War II, Siple did climate and clothing research working with the Research and Development Office of the U.S. Army. He developed the cold weather parka and the thermal barrier boot. The research covered not only polar regions, but desert, mountain and tropical conditions.

He was the inaugural scientific leader at the U.S. Amundsen — Scott South Pole Station 1956 — 57, during the International Geophysical Year. He wrote about it in his fourth book, "90 Degrees South."

Siple went on to be the U.S. science attaché to Australia and New Zealand from 1963 to 1966. However, he suffered a stroke in New Zealand in 1966 and returned to the U.S. He passed away in November 1968 at the Army Research Center in Arlington, Virginia.

Keith Gushard can be reached at (814) 724-6370 or by email at kgushard@meadvilletribune.com.