Will wind dry out frozen splits?

Yes it will. Your wood is losing moisture. Albeit at a much slower rate than in the summer.

(Wind does strip ice off a frozen lake. Ever notice how the ice cubes on a tray in the freezer seem to shrink? Takes a long while but it happens.)

Yes, as noted it is as slow as molasses running down a turtle's tail in January.

Note there are however, a few place on the earth where apparently normal and usual earth bound physics are often not applied so YMMV

I'm stacking as much wood as I can right now, thinking that even in the marginal drying months ahead, the easy initial moisture will evaporate off the splits pretty easily. This won't be in freezing temps though....

What about folks in the far northern regions? Yes, the wood will still dry in the winter but not as fast as in the summer. It is sort of like hanging a laundry on a clothes line. It will dry faster in the summer but will still dry in the winter too.

Backwoods Savage said:

It is sort of like hanging a laundry on a clothes line. It will dry faster in the summer but will still dry in the winter too.

Click to expand...

Around here, the wind in the summer can be low. Winter, spring and fall tend to be breezier. And we've seen how wind can help the laundry dry....

Never heard of freeze dried, Huh?

This is my theory on the effect of freezing and thawing actions in the winter. I think it helps "crack" the wood. In other words, if there is so much moisture in the wood and it constantly freezes and thaws, you start to see the wood begin to split. This splitting of the wood compliments summer drying. I think there is a lot of value in getting wood split and stacked in the winter.

Lick your lips, then stand outside during February.
You will "appreciated" the drying power of a winter-wind.

The technical term is sublimation: the change from the solid phase to the vapor phase without first becoming liquid. It is a slow process at standard air pressure. Freeze drying accelerates the process by pulling a vacuum.

I used to do a lot of snow camping. I discovered that wet nylon garments would dry if hung out overnight at sub-freezing tempertures (when the humidty was VERY low). Not so with thicker wool clothing or inside the tent (yuck) or igloo (yea!) where the temp was higher but the humidity was much higher.

The last research station at the South Pole (before the most recent) was housed inside a huge plywood dome. They held regular fire drills. The moisture content of the wood structure was nearly zero from years of extreme sub-zero temps and zero humidity.

The surface moisture on your wood will sublimate off fairly quickly in dry, cold conditions. The internal moisture will move out, but very slowly.

My mother hung clothes on the line all winter before clothes dryers, they would come in frozen but mostly dry, then she hung them on a rack by the fireplace or radiator. Those sheets smelled good when you got into bed.

With 50mph wind and low humidity your wood is seasoning nicely.

Mr. Whoopee is right. Wind will dry your firewood, in particular it will dry off the outside of the wood. If the sun hits the wood the process goes a lot faster.

I have always liked to think so. I have always liked to think the cold dry winds of Jan and Feb worked harder at the woodpiles than the heat and humidity of June.