Heat Index and Wind Chill - Making it feel worse

Here in the Big Town of Savage we are suffering from an early June heat wave with max temps in the upper 90s. Definitely not fun, especially if your AC quits on the job.

I watch the local weather folks and they spend most of the time talking about the "feels like" Heat Index and not the true temperature. According to them the Heat Index is calculated by using the actual temperature and the humidity reading. It's not bad enough they tell you that it's 96 degrees, then they pile on with, "But it feels like 104." They seem to relish in hyping the situation.

In the winter they do the same thing by telling you that it's 19 degrees, but it feels like 9 with the Wind Chill Index. Once again they hype the report to make you feel even worse. Of course if you're outside but not in the wind, it only feels like 19.

The thing I really wonder about is this. The Wind Chill uses the temperature/wind speed combination while the Heat Index uses the temperature/humidity combination. Why doesn't the wind have an effect on the heat index? Why doesn't the humidity have an effect on the wind chill?

I guess it's just too much for me to understand. All I know is that I either feel hot or cold and don't need either index to make it worse. Maybe we ought to just go back to reporting/forecasting temperatures and forget the dratted indexes.

Right now the temperature is about 96 here in the BToS,
JD