– How can humidity in the air be measured as a percentage? How much humidity is 100%?
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We measure humidity in terms of relevance, as apposed to absolute.
The warmer air is, the more moisture it can hold per unit. As it cools off, the amount of water vapor it can contain decreases. This is why we get dew/frost in the mornings.
100% humidity is the maximum amount of water vapor a specific amount of air can hold ar a specific temp. So if you have a hot room at 100% humidity and it starts to cool off, you’ll get condensation forming on surfaces, and/or clouds forming if we’re talking about the great oitdoors.
The flip side is if you have a cooler room at 100% humidity and you start to warm it up, the realitive humidity will drop, and the air will begin to feel dry.
We don’t typically measure in absolute terms because it isn’t useful in relating it to how we experience it. We are comfortable around the 40-60% area. More and it’s muggy, less and it’s dry.
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