Determination of the reference temperature for the kinematic viscosity of Reynolds number is the key problem for describing the forced convection of a heated bluff-body. The heat transfer of a heated circular cylinder in laminar cross airflow is experimentally investigated in this paper. New correlation equations based on the effective temperature have been firstly derived. All experimental data collapsed excellently on the correlation curves. Moreover, the derived Nusselt and Reynolds number relations are independent of the vortex shedding patterns. The correlation equations have further been transformed to an explicit form without temperature ratio. By introducing a newly proposed representative Reynolds number concept, linear correlation equations have been successfully derived.