We hear the weather terms – cold, cool, mild, warm and hot – used all the time on television and in newspapers, as well as in National Weather Service forecasts.

Yet, curiously, the weather service’s official glossary of meteorological terms, doesn’t contain definitions for any of these.

Want to know what Hoar Frost is – or a Hook Echo? No problem. The weather service provides a full explanation.

Want to know the precise meaning of hot and cold? No dice.

Chilly, nippy, tepid and temperate? Forget about it.

(Oddly, the weather service glossary does define “brisk” as 15 to 25 mph winds, while the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as “pleasantly cool or cold.”)

To some extent, the definitions are obvious. We all know when it feels hot or cold outside. Still, some sort of parameters should be provided.

Thus, here’s how I define these terms – as they pertain to South Florida:

Cold: 55 degrees and below

Cool: 56 to 65 degrees

Mild: 66 to 75 degrees

Warm: 75 to 85 degrees

Hot: Above 85 degrees

I ran these numbers by meteorologist Robert Molleda of the National Weather Service in Miami, and his personal definitions differed. Here’s his take:

Cold: Below 50 degrees

Cool: 50 to 60 degrees

Mild: 60 to 80 degrees – “I know, it’s a large range,” he says.

Warm: 80 to 90 degrees

Hot: Above 90

Molleda added that temperatures, by themselves, don’t tell the whole story about what’s cold, cool, etc.

“Of course, humidity plays a role here,” he said. “Eighty degrees in March with a nice breeze and low relative humidity is mild, but 80 degrees with high humidity and little to no wind can feel quite sticky.”

For that matter, he said 60-65 degrees with a strong wind can feel chilly, “whereas the same temperature with full sun and little wind feels nice.”

Time of day matters too, Molleda said.

“For example, I consider high temperatures below 68 as cool days in South Florida, but a morning low of 65 in January is mild,” he said.

What it boils down to, essentially, is that you can define these terms to your personal taste.

So, what’s hot and cold to you?