Well, summer is officially here, that’s for sure! It didn’t come unnoticed either, today marks the first day of the heat wave hitting the Philadelphia area. Here at NK, what better time to bring out the Kestrel brand’s newest addition to its product line, the Kestrel 4400 Heat Stress Tracker.  If you’ve been following the NK blog, you know that this isn’t the first time we’ve mentioned how excited we are about the new 4400. It is a product that was 13 years of research in the making. The Engineering Team at NK set out a goal to create a meter that measures WBGT using a smaller than the standard black globe (which is 6 inches in diameter), keeping it handheld and portable like the rest of the meters in the Kestrel family, and also make it waterless. Some of the known WBGT meters on the market are about 3 times the size and require distilled water to get an accurate WBGT reading. With the Kestrel 4400, you don’t need that!

Another measurement of the Heat Stress Tracker is the Black Globe measurement. The 4400 has a 1-inch black globe that accounts for radiant temperature, in other words how hot it actually feels. For example, if it’s 90 degrees outside and you’re standing under the shade of a big tree, you’re going to feel much cooler than 90 degrees, on the flip side, if you move on to a black top parking lot, you’re going to feel significantly hotter than 90 degrees.

To give you an idea of how different it can be, we thought today would be the perfect day to put it to the test. The Kestrel 4400 measured 93.7 degrees around 2:30 PM here in Boothwyn, PA. Using the 4400, we then took a look at the black globe temperature measurement and it was 122.2 degrees! Now that is a big difference. Be sure to stay hydrated during today’s heat wave and make sure you don’t go outside if you don’t have to!