Upstate NY: 92 Degrees with 70% Humidity. Is Texas/the south that much worse, consistently?

Straight Answers wrote:

Well, I thought 90/70 was the bar, and it did get close to that (88/70) and since it is only measured periodically, it

You thought wrong. Look at the hourly charts. It was never 90/70% or even 88/70%

The high of the day was 88/57%

malmo wrote:

Straight Answers wrote:

To be fair, it probably was

http://w1.weather.gov/obhistory/KSYR.html

but to a southerner or a Texan or whatever, that is nothing

It wasn't. The OP is FOS. EOT.

The high today in Syracuse was 88°, DP 71°, RH was 57%.

Yesterday 90°, DP 66°, RH 45%

Saturday 85°, DP 65°, RH 51%

http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KSYR/2014/6/30/DailyHistory.html

Thank you, malmo. It's largely because of you that I know that most people have no clue about humidity, and just jump from "It feels like a freaking sauna outside!" to "90 degrees and 90% humidity", which has never occurred anywhere in the USA. So I looked at the title of this thread and thought "Maybe 92 degrees and a 70 dew point" (that's less than 50% humidity, by the way), which would be bad enough, and wasn't far from the truth. So this was actually less wrong than usual.

The weather's worse in the south, though, so it does probably get to 90/70% there sometimes, though not nearly as often as southerners claim. People everywhere exaggerate how bad their weather gets.

Conversion calculator I googled up here:

I just checked and apparently 90/90 has indeed happened in the USA, and so have even 90 degree dew points. They're quite rare, though.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/record-dew-point-temperatures

Where does Alabama rank in how bad it is for heat/humidity compared to the rest of the country?

You're welcome. Here is the best, and easiest to understand article I've found on dew point/relative humidity. Scroll down to the bottom of the article -- it specifically addresses the 90/90% canard.

The Dew Point Temperature - A Better Approach

The Concept

Humidity is a complicated concept. Humidity refers to evaporated water substance in the air, i.e. water vapor. For years relative humidity has been what we use to inform the TV audience, but it has many pit falls and to tell you the truth almost no one understands it, including many meteorologists.

Think Energy

When thinking of humidity you always have to think in terms of energy. Of course this is expressed as temperature. There is only so much energy to go around and only a certain part of the thermal energy can go to do the work of evaporation. The rest goes to the other molecules in the air.

Relative humidity expresses how much of the available energy has been used. A relative humidity of 50% means half the energy has been used to evaporate water from the ground, streams, lakes anywhere else it is and 50% is still available to do more evaporation.

Relative to What?

On a summer morning the temperature may be 75 degrees and the relative humidity 90%, a very sticky morning indeed. Without changing the amount of water vapor in the air if the temperature hits 92 degrees in the afternoon the relative humidity is 52%. Relative humidity is RELATIVE TO THE AMOUNT OF ENERGY AVAILABLE Because the amount of energy increased as the sun warmed the atmosphere the percentage of the energy used decreased, i.e. the relative humidity, all the while there was no change in the amount of vapor in the air.

So when you hear someone say its feels worse than 52% relative humidity today, they do not understand the concept of RELATIVE HUMIDITY. Ninety-two degrees and 52% is a very humid afternoon. Because the concept is confusing many meteorologists are trying to get use dew point temperature.

The Dew Point Temperature

Dew point temperature is a measure of humidity. If you take a parcel of air, and cool it, eventually you will remove enough energy to begin to get water vapor to condense. Remember the water vapor was originally liquid water and to get it to evaporate you had to add energy. As long as it has sufficient energy it will remain vapor, but as you cool it at some point condensation will occur. The temperature where condensation begins is the dew point temperature. In terms of relative humidity, as the parcel of air is cooled, the relative humidity increases, when the relative humidity reaches 100%, you are at the dew point temperature.

Dew Point vs. R.H.

Unlike relative humidity if dew point increases, it is only because the amount of moisture increases. If relative changes it can be because of temperature change or moisture change, two variables leads to too many possibilities, with dew point it is strictly moisture you are tracking.

Dew point can never be higher than the temperature, at saturation, i.e. 100% relative humidity the temperature and dew point are the same.

So How Does Dew Point Feel?

On a typical summer day the following apply:

________________________________________

• Dew Point(F)..........Perception

________________________________________

• 75+....................Extremely uncomfortable

• 70-74...................Very humid, quite uncomfortable

• 65-69...................A bit uncomfortable for most people

• 60-64...................Ok for most, but everyone begins to feel the humidity

• 55-59...................Comfortable

• 50-54...................Very comfortable

• 49...................Feels like the west, very pleasant, a bit dry to some

________________________________________

Common Misconception

One last thing if you ever hear someone say it was 90 degrees and the humidity was 90%, that has never happened in Cincinnati, (and unless the greenhouse effect goes into overdrive never will). 90 deg/90% requires a dew point of 85.5 degrees. In Cincinnati the highest ever dew point was 81 deg. for just a few minutes.

In August 1995 we had four hours of 78,79,78,77 degree dew points, the highest persistent dew points I have seen in Cincinnati since working here as a meteorologist. For one hour I did see a dew point of 81, just after a thunderstorm.

World Record Dew Points

However veterans of the Persian Gulf War know what 90/90 feels like. The Persian Gulf and Red Sea both attain sea water temperatures in the mid 90's. That's plenty of energy, along with the 115 degree air temperatures, to evaporate water.

The dew point has been measured on the shore of Ethiopia, the area is now part of Eritrea, at 94 deg. F. The highest known dew point temperature in the world. The relative humidity with a temp of 115 and a dew point of 94 is 54% this doesn't tell you as much as the dew point when you consider the table above.

the reviver wrote:

I just checked and apparently 90/90 has indeed happened in the USA, and so have even 90 degree dew points. They're quite rare, though.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/record-dew-point-temperatures

It was Brian Erb who pointed out that Nebraska and the upper Mississippi consistently has some of the highest dew points in the country. One of the reasons is that corn respiration pumps massive amounts of water vapor into the air. Omaha has brutal Summers.

A few years ago people were wondering why a cross country race at Lehigh (I believe) was so damn hot. As it turns out, the cross country course runs right through a cornfield. Mystery solved.

the reviver wrote:

I just checked and apparently 90/90 has indeed happened in the USA, and so have even 90 degree dew points. They're quite rare, though.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/record-dew-point-temperatures

Wow, Appleton, Wisconsin had the highest dewpoint ever recorded 90°. The RH was 71% when that happened!

But it was during the July heat wave of 1995 that the highest dew point of all was measured in the Upper Midwest: 90° at Appleton, Wisconsin at 5 p.m. on July 13th of that summer. The air temperature stood at 101° in Appleton at that time leading to a heat index reading of 148°, perhaps the highest such reading ever measured in the United States

Look dummy, it was 88/71 at 15:54 hours. Ksyr.

If you feel that is materially different than 90/70, fine, but the fact it that it got near or to the mark in question.

malmo wrote:

the reviver wrote:

I just checked and apparently 90/90 has indeed happened in the USA, and so have even 90 degree dew points. They're quite rare, though.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/record-dew-point-temperatures

It was Brian Erb who pointed out that Nebraska and the upper Mississippi consistently has some of the highest dew points in the country. One of the reasons is that corn respiration pumps massive amounts of water vapor into the air. Omaha has brutal Summers.

A few years ago people were wondering why a cross country race at Lehigh (I believe) was so damn hot. As it turns out, the cross country course runs right through a cornfield. Mystery solved.

Yeah, corn monoculture is truly amazing.

Now that I know about how corn increases humidity in its area, I have to assume people have noticed this for a long time, even if they didn't have the statistics to back it up. So I wonder if the Twilight Zone writers were having a bit of a joke in reference to this when they portrayed a child with the power to disappear anyone he didn't like to "the cornfield".

Central Ohio has had dew points of 72 or 73 the last couple days. I have been running in the evening just as it is getting dark. While the temp drops a few degrees, the humidity goes up as the dew point stays more constant.

Right now wunderground is showing 73.4° with 94% humidity and a dew point of 72°. It's 1:00 am

The forecast for later today at 1:00 pm shows 84° with 70% humidity and a dew point of 73°.

Straight Answers wrote:

Look dummy, it was 88/71 at 15:54 hours. Ksyr.

If you feel that is materially different than 90/70, fine, but the fact it that it got near or to the mark in question.

You're a moron. Dew point and RH is not the same thing. Someone put a link to the daily weather report for this idiot.

Straight Answers wrote:

Look dummy, it was 88/71 at 15:54 hours. Ksyr.

If you feel that is materially different than 90/70, fine, but the fact it that it got near or to the mark in question.

The OP invented a temp of 92°, when in fact 88° was the recorded high for the day (and then only briefly). I would say that is different. Yes.

Should live in a car wrote:

Hey

I've never been down to Texas/Arizona to witness the heat. I've been to florida in the summer. It was very hot, and reminds me of upstate NY this weekend where we are in the low 90s with humidity between 65-75%.

Also, I don't have A/C.

It's not even close. There are summers in Texas and Arizona such that every single day is literally over 100. The fact that in Upstate NY you can get away with no AC says it all. In those cities that would not be feasible because your home would turn into an oven.

I'd have to also add that the DC area specifically is one of the worst places in the country to spend a summer. Last summer the average dew point there was 71 degrees, which is brutal. And there was also a stretch of days where the temperature never dropped below 80 degrees, even at night.

This is specific to DC because the city itself was built on a swamp, and the national mall itself was built on the dredged Potomac River. There's just an unbelievable amount of moisture in the air. I've been around the country, and I fear summer in DC more than almost anywhere. But this will always be a subjective question. And for some people it's a question of pride, so it's hard to make any advances in this argument.

Oswego is getting their today. Dew Point currently at 75 at 10:40AM.

Also...Dunkirk, NY. Dewpoint is apparently 86? 86F and 98% humidity.

I'd question the Dunkirk reading except that Fredonia is pretty much the same.

http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=fredonia%2C+ny

Different stations getting the same results. That is brutal weather...in UPSTATE NY

Speaking of DC, corn and humidity, every June, the Montgomery county road runners have a race at the

http://www.montgomeryparks.org/facilities/ag_farm.shtm

agricultural farm park, the site of the XC nationals a few years back.

It can be brutal.

I think it's about time for the braggarts to post about how hot it is during their runs.

Since 2010 I've live in Fort Polk, LA and Fort Stewart, GA....some of the worse summers I've had the pleasure of experiencing. My one summer in Fort Polk the high temp never got below 95 and reached a high of I think 101 or 103 with all that lovely swampy southern humidity. Fort Stewart has been somewhat better with less extremes and being close to the coast. Still, it is consistantly hot and humid.

Alan