What is Relative Humidity and How Does it Affect How I Feel Outside?

[MULTIZ321]

What is Relative Humidity and How Does it Affect How I Feel Outside?

What Is Relative Humidity and How Does It Affect How I Feel Outside?

We hear about humidity in just about every weather report on the nightly news. There are several different ways meteorologists measure humidity, but relative humidity is the most common measurement. What is relative humidity, though?

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Richard

 

[artringwald]

I rely on the dew point to tell how comfortable I'm going to be. I can usually guess the dew point between 1-2 degrees when I'm outside.

 

[moonstone]

I always pay attention to the relative humidity as higher humidity levels make a huge difference on how hot is seems outside to me. I have been in 117*F with about 5% humidity (in Death Valley) and felt fine, and also in 90*F with 80% humidity (in Belize) and felt a way more uncomfortable. I'll take the higher temp and much lower humidity any day. The weather folks here (Toronto area) always give the 'Humidex' as well as the actual or predicted temperature when reporting or predicting the weather in the summer.


~Diane

 

[AnnaS]

I just now it was extremely humid out there this morning here. After our morning walk I said to my husband that this walk should count as a "double" walk.....

 

[Dori]

When I visited our son and his family for 5 weeks in Vietnam (grandma babysitting trip), temperatures were around 37 degrees, 98 F. Some days the humidity was in the high 90's. Just stepping outdoors made me feel like a wet noodle. First time in my life I had ever been drenched with sweat!

Dori

 

[TheHolleys87]

In addition to the issues described in this article, to me high humidity makes the air feel heavier and more difficult to breathe. I find it hard to decide whether to walk in the morning when the humidity is higher or later in the evening when the “feels like” temperature may be higher but the humidity is less.

 

[Brett]

It's always humid in coastal Virginia

 

[Luanne]

I have never lived anywhere that would be considered humid and I don't handle humidity well. About the only place that is humid that I enjoy is Hawaii.

 

[isisdave]

I rely on the dew point to tell how comfortable I'm going to be. I can usually guess the dew point between 1-2 degrees when I'm outside.

Me too, since moving from southern California to southern Indiana.

For a given gas and pressure, dew point will tell you how much water there is in the air, in grams per cubic meter. I use this calculator. In SoCal, absolute humidity would usually be 12-13 g/m3. In Indiana, I find it tolerable up to about 16. 18 is wet. That's the highest I've seen this summer.

I think we use RH because it's traditional and because it's easily measured with psychrometers, but it doesn't say much to me about what kind of feeling to expect.