This week's question comes from Morning Brief reader Katrena, who asks, "If the temperature is above freezing, can a wind chill factor of 32 degrees freeze water?"

Meteorologist Rob Shackelford: No.

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Just kidding. I’ll explain why.

Water will begin to freeze at 32 and below, but when the wind chill drops below it, we feel like our skin is freezing and begin to suffer the effects of below freezing temperatures, including hypothermia.

The wind chill is the measure of how much heat is being removed and drawn away from our skin at a certain temperature.

The faster the wind, the faster heat is being withdrawn from your skin. This is a factor that can be so dangerous.

Imagine if your child is waiting at the bus stop in the morning, and you look at your phone and it says 36 degrees. You may think that's fine, a sweatshirt will do it.

But if there's a 30 mile an hour gust and that wind chill is below freezing, your child's face is gonna be struggling.

That’s why knowing the wind chill is essential.

Our app is good about this, but I'm always frustrated when apps on people's phones give the temperature real big in the winter, and the wind chill is this tiny, microscopic “feels like 15” sidenote.

Everyone needs to know the wind chill.

On the other side of the spectrum is you have heat index, which is based on humidity. How much moisture is in the air will determine how hot and oppressive it feels outside.

The temperature can be 80 degrees, but when it's super humid outside, with stagnant air, it can feel like over 100.

You can have heat-related illness based on a heat index, just as you can have hypothermia based on a wind chill, not based on the real temperature.

To reiterate your question, which is great by the way, even on a hypothetical day where the temperature is 33 degrees and there's a wind chill of negative 40, a puddle of water on the road would still be water. You would never get an ice patch from wind chill.

Honestly, that much wind would probably blow the puddle away before it froze it, but that’s an entirely different question.

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