eli5 I know humidity makes it feel hotter in high temps and colder in low temps but how about a place like California coast when it’s like 50 degrees would it feel cooler or warmer?
In: 7
Yes, higher humidity can make hot air feel hotter. But higher humidity can make cool air feel warmer, too.
This is because the human body uses evaporative cooling to cool itself. Your skin exudes sweat, the sweat evaporates, and the evaporating sweat carries heat away with it.
In hot, humid air, evaporative cooling is less efficient because the air cannot absorb much more water. The same applies in cool, humid air. So if you “work up a sweat,” even in cool air, you can have difficulty losing excess heat.
This explains why someone might quip, “yes, it’s hot, but it’s a dry heat.” Hot, dry air can aid evaporative cooling—time to break out a fan, which also aids evaporative cooling by encouraging more air flow over your skin. This also explains why some people wonder, “why does 72°F in summer feel warmer than 72°F in winter?” More humid air in summer doesn’t cool you as efficiently as less humid air at the same temperature in winter.
I’ve noticed that the “imperceptibly neutral” temperatures just feel more aggressively neutral if the humidity is high (or if there’s fog). The pleasantly moderate air temperature turns into an unsettling lack of any temperature sensation.
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