Eli5: How hot would water have to be for it to be vapor coming out of the tap?
In: Physics
A hundred degrees centigrade, the boiling point of water. (edit: give or take, depending on air pressure/altitude.) If you heat water up past its boiling temperature, it is forced to evaporate, and it’s impossible for it to continue existing as a liquid.
But this fact can be a bit deceiving, because pretty much whenever you have liquid water at any temperature, *some* of it is always evaporating into the air. The exact rate of evaporation depends on the temperature, and depends on the humidity – i.e. how much vapor is already present in the air.
So, even when the water faucet is running cold, a *little bit* of it will be coming out as vapor, but in order for it to be 100% vapor, it needs to be boiling hot.
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