It’s Not the Humidity, It’s the Heat!

The title of today’s blog plays on that long time adage that we all tend to abuse. You know the one that dad uses at the grill for the summer picnic, or grand mom uses on the drive to brunch after Sunday church! “Hey, it is not the heat it is the humidity”, both are known to say.

All summer long, we as a society are trained to blame the sweat rolling down our brows or the rings around our collars on the tropical humidity. Sure it may only be 88 or 89 degrees, but it sure feels like it is in the 90s because of the humidity. It is a question of the humidity trumping the heat, right?

But wait a minute! If you chatted with Coach Leon Hart over at Putnam Stadium today, he would tell you it is supposed to be blazing hot for Tomcat 2-a-days in August. Leon would not distinguish between the heat and the humidity. He would simply let A.J. Stadelmeyer, the Ashland Paul Blazer CAT (Certified Athletic Trainer), use his sling psychrometer to determine how hot it really feels on athletes. This would determine how frequent the water breaks need to be on the Tomcat practice field.

So where am I going with this blog? Easy, it’s the heat not the humidity that is taking us for a toasty ride this week. Daytime highs near 90 the rest of the work week will be accompanied by desert humidity levels. This afternoon for example, Huntington has hit at least 89 and perhaps 90 (if 90 that would make 16 times this season with my May forecast of 17 looking a tad low). But the humidity level is in the 20s and 30s percent range. Feels like a sauna out there!

When I think sauna, I think desert heat as in the Vegas Strip. Now a quick look at Sin City at 2 o’clock Mountain Time finds the temperature at 100 degrees and the humidity a parched 4%; that’s hotter and drier than our region for sure.

At the same time, Key West Florida, behind Tropical Storm Fay now, is 86 degrees with 75% humidity and a heat index of 96. That’s more steam bath heat.

Which is our climate closer to today and this week? Well, I contend with a strong conviction that it is Vegas not Key West. A dead give away is to compare skies. Vegas is perfectly sunny while Key West has a sky filled with puffy cumulus clouds. Our sky clearly is like the Nevada sky, a dead give away our climate is more desert than tropics.

So sure it is a scorcher on the construction line this afternoon and kids making the ride home from school are hanging out the windows of un-air conditioned buses. But at least for today and the rest of this work week, it’s not the humidity; it’s the heat that is getting you irritable!

Moral of the story, whether hot and dusty or warm and humid, there is more than 1 way to feel uncomfortable in late summer. Just ask anyone who walks the Vegas Strip in summer.

So seek water this week and by all means plan a pool party this weekend. It will be hot!

FAY UPDATE

No change in my thinking from yesterday! Fay will enhance our heat and dryness into the weekend. In fact, 95 degrees is not out of the question in the Friday thru Sunday time period courtesy of Fay.

There are signs of tropical moisture from Fay arriving next week, but those ideas are sketchy at best.