With the warm up expected late weekend/early next week, wanted to talk a little more about humidity. It's been a while since it has felt "muggy" outside and I think we will get our first dose Sunday afternoon. Water molecules (vapor) are all around us; we can't see them, but they're there. Temperature and dew point play a role in what the relative humidity is. The higher the dew point (and relative humidity), the more discomfort you feel. The reason: the more moist the air is, the larger the resistance of moisture loss (and therefore to heat loss due to evaporation) from the human body to the air, because the air is closer to its saturation point. Think of it as, when you get out of the shower you often times feel cool because evaporation is a cooling process. But, have you ever gotten out of the shower on a humid day when maybe your a/c wasn't working and you just couldn't seem to dry off? That's because the water doesn't evaporate as quickly as it would normally, making you feel uncomfortable and sticky. Dew points are expected to rise into the 60s through next week and whenever dew points reach those values the air begins to feel just a little more humid.
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