Why does metal feel colder than wood at the same temperature?

Your skin does not measure temperature. It measures how quickly heat is leaving or entering it. Metal and wood sitting in the same room are at the same temperature, but metal removes heat from your hand far faster, and your nervous system reports that rapid loss as cold.

The property responsible is thermal conductivity. Metals conduct heat extremely well because their free electrons carry energy efficiently through the material. Wood, plastic and fabric are poor conductors, with structures that impede that transfer, and many contain trapped air, which is a particularly poor conductor.

When you touch metal, heat flows rapidly from your skin into it and then away through the bulk of the object. When you touch wood, the small area you contact warms quickly to near skin temperature and the flow slows dramatically, so the sensation fades.

The prediction this makes is testable and correct: the effect reverses above body temperature. Metal in strong sun feels far hotter than wood beside it, because it now delivers heat into you quickly. Anyone who has touched a car door handle in summer has confirmed this.

The same principle explains several everyday observations. Tiled bathroom floors feel colder than carpet in the same room. A metal spoon in hot soup becomes unbearable while a wooden one stays comfortable. And why a fifteen degree room feels fine while fifteen degree water is dangerously cold: water conducts heat away roughly twenty-five times faster than air.

It also explains why wind makes cold feel worse. Moving air strips away the warmed layer next to your skin, increasing the rate of heat loss without changing the temperature at all.