Why does humidity make temperature feel hot, but restaurants use misters to cool the patrons?

Question

I live in a town with a lot of humidity in summer. I perspire a lot, but restaurants around here have misters outdoors to “cool things down”. How does that work? How can adding more humidity make the heat more tolerable?

In: 340

Answer 1

Evaporation of water from a surface (like skin) cools the surface down. Humidity is water (as a gas) is in the air. The more water there is in the air already, the harder it is for water to evaporate into the air. A mister doesn’t add much water to the air as a gas, but it is sprinkling tiny droplets of liquid water around, which gets surfaces wet, then the water evaporates and cools the surfaces.