Why is wet bulb temperature important? How does it effect us?

Question

Edit: Thank you all for the detailed answers! You guys are awesome.

In: 2953

Answer 1

There are already plenty of good explanations here, so I won’t add to that.

I used to work in the lumber dry kiln industry. Wet bulb temperatures are very important! The comparison between wet bulb and dry bulb tells us the humidity inside the kiln. This is especially critical when drying certain hardwoods when they are green. The (computerized) kiln controller would at times actually inject steam into the kilns to raise the humidity (raise the wet bulb temp). It sounds counterproductive, but it is necessary.

Another point is that humidity makes a huge difference in how the temperature feels to a human. I was born and raised in the Midwest US, and later moved to the East Coast. The cold “bites” a lot more here in the East because of the humidity. 0F/-18C feels extremely cold here, but it’s not that bad in the Midwest.