Mild Seven Outdoor Quest

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Heat, humidity, dehydration and sunburn

Lisa de Speville / 28.10.2004

It\'s hot here. The kind of heat that slams in to you like a 6-ton truck when you walk out of an air-conditioned room, leaving you immediately weakened.



As a tourist, it isn’t much of a problem. After a few days you get used to being sweaty, sticky and lethargic, symptoms alleviated by spending hours at the pool-side bar drinking iced tea. But when you’re a competitor at Mild Seven Outdoor Quest 2004… well, the situation is considerably different; here competitors must deal with high-intensity exercise over a prolonged period without the benefit of acclimatisation.



Following this race back home, you probably think that 30C here in Kota Kinabalu is not that bad, after all, it may be 36C where you are… But, have you ever noticed how 30C feels hotter when it is humid than when the air is dry? This is where the humidex formula comes in. The humidex value is derived by combining ambient temperature and the relative humidity of the air (how much moisture the air contains relative to how much it can contain at a certain temperature) to describe what the temperature feels like and how it is perceived in reality.



For example: the humidex value of 28C/82F ambient temperature at 10% relative humidity is 28C/82F, at 40% it is 31C/88F, at 60% it is 35C/95F and at 85% it is 40C/104F! These values have been applied to a scale that describes what the temperature really feels like outdoors in terms of the degree of comfort/discomfort experienced.



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Humidex values: Degree of comfort or discomfort



[From: http://www.csgnetwork.com/canhumidexcalc.html]





< 29C: Little or no discomfort



30C to 34C: Noticeable discomfort



35C to 39C: Evident discomfort



40C to 45C: Intense discomfort; avoid exertion



Above 45C: Dangerous discomfort



Above 54C: Heat stroke probable



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