Many school districts across Michigan have canceled classes both Tuesday and Wednesday due to predicted bitterly cold temperatures.
Sometimes those calls can be hard to make, and there are no hard and fast rules about how long it takes for someone to develop cold-related illness under certain conditions, said Dr. Jason Vieder, vice chairman of emergency medicine at Henry Ford Health.
Vieder said that’s because there are many individual factors at play, including certain health conditions and age. “You have a little bit more difficulty with regulating body temperature when you're kind of either really young, or a little bit older,” he said. “So those folks are more at risk.”
Nonetheless, Vieder said with the type of extreme cold expected over the next two days — temperatures expected to be below zero in the mornings, and feeling even lower with the wind chill factor — people should aim to be outside “as little as possible,” since the beginnings of frostbite can set in within minutes on unprotected skin.
Vieter added that the wind chill doesn’t just make it feel colder — it can actually accelerate the onset of negative effects. “The wind can cause your skin and your body to cool faster,” he said. “In addition to the temperature, the wind is a major factor in how cold we feel, and how quickly you can get sick.”
But if you simply must head outdoors over the next couple of days, Vieder advises dressing in multiple warm layers, and protecting vulnerable extremities like fingers and ears.
“You really have to protect those things,” Vieter said. “And if you're outside, you want to try to stay a little bit active. That helps you maintain your body heat.”
