Happy First Official Day of Summer! Bring on the popsicles, beach trips and weekend adventures! Although summer is a favorite time for most, as memories of running through the sprinkler and hearing the happy tune of the ice cream truck come to mind, for those along the East coast, summer also brings those sticky, sweaty conditions. The most popular kid at the party seems to be relative humidity, but in reality dew point is the real key as to why it feels the way it does outside.
Relative humidity is determined by dividing the dew point temperature, or the temperature at which the air becomes saturated, by the actual air temperature…you may be thinking, well what’s wrong with that? Well let’s take Florida for example. Each morning in the summer, dew forms on the grass, as the temperature outside matches the dew point, roughly 72 degrees. Humidity=100%. However, as the summer sun heats up the atmosphere, the temperature rises to the low to mid nineties, but the dew point remains the same. Humidity=56%. Comfortable and dry? Uhh for any Floridians out there you know that this is absolutely not the case.
Dew Point on the other hand is the BEST indicator of degree of comfort. A dew point in the 50’s as those lucky ducks on the west coast feel most of time is very comfortable. Whereas a dew point in the 70’s, typical of summer conditions for the rest of the nation is when you begin to feel very uncomfortable and sticky.
Here’s an infograph of dew point temperatures to hopefully make things a little bit clearer:
WeatherWonderings 
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