Big storms on Tuesday. Lynchburg picked up more than 2.5 inches of rain at the airport but only 0.2" at our WeatherBug station in Dunbar Middle. The atmosphere is dripping wet and "nature is putting on a big show" according to my mom. As I came across two items in the Roanoke Times this morning it reminded me to mention the dew point. Kevin Myatt's excellent Weather Journal had this entry:
You might be surprised to learn that a day we would consider brutally humid would probably only have a relative humidity of about 50 percent. The true measure of the amount of moisture in the air isn't the relative humidity but the dew point. The dew point is the temperature at which the atmosphere would be entirely saturated, or have 100 percent relative humidity. Air can hold more moisture as it gets warmer, so the higher the dew point, the greater the amount of moisture in the air. Relative humidity represents the percentage of the available space in the air that is filled with moisture. If your gas tank holds 10 gallons and it has nine gallons in it, it is 90 percent full. But if it holds 20 gallons, it is only 45 percent full, even though it is holding the same amount of gas. A dew point of 62 represents the same amount of moisture in the air whether the temperature is 70 or 100. But at 70 degrees, the humidity would be 76 percent, while at 100, the humidity would only be 29 percent. On an extremely hot, humid day locally, our temperature might be 95 with a dew point of 75. The relative humidity would be 53 percent.
Well put Kevin. Thanks for letting me cut and paste. The other item was in the letters to the editor section. One reader wrote that global climate change was a huge left wing conspiracy. What a waste of paper and ink. Planet Earth's climate has always changed, and changed dramatically. The only question now is how much are we involved? Most TV meteorologists don't have that answer, this one included. But take politics out and ask yourself, have you done anything today to keep our planet green?
No comments:
Post a Comment