ELI5: Why are outside temps of 95+ uncomfortably hot even though that’s so close to our internal body temps?

What you sense and describe as hot or cold temperature, is actually the amount of heat (energy) you are transferring in to or out of your body. Here is an example of a similar phenomenon:

If you hold a wooden block and metal block, both of which at 70F (room temperature), you will feel the metal block as cold and wooden block as warm. How can two objects, exactly at the same room temperature, feel hotter or colder comparatively?

Metals have the ability to conduct heat better than wood , and metal block sucks up the heat from your 95F body faster, compared to the wooden block. As a result, you feel like metal block is colder. But actually, you are simply losing heat faster to the metal block.

Similarly, your 95F body generates excess heat it needs to get rid of, which it can do nicely when outside temp if 75F (and you perceive outside as "just the right temperature"). When outside is 95F, the excess heat cannot dissipate to air, since your body and outside air are at the same temperature. You, incorrectly, perceive it as outside being hotter than you are.

/r/explainlikeimfive Thread