With the extreme temperatures in our area this week, a few parents have been asking how we determine when outdoor athletic activities should be canceled after school.
For this question, we reached out to our certified athletic trainer from Nationwide Children's Hospital, Brianna Hedding, for a more descriptive explanation of how we proceed when dealing with extreme temperatures. Here's her response:
"In athletics, we don't just use the temperature outside; we use something called wet bulb temperature. The wet bulb temperature takes into account temperature, humidity, wind, sun angle, pressure, cloud cover, and heat stress. We use a special device called a kestrel to measure it. There are different temperature ranges that we have to follow to help make the decisions of whether or not athletes can participate."
(It should be noted that this measurement differs from heat index, which is calculated using temperature and humidity.)