IEM Daily Feature
Tuesday, 13 September 2016

Daily Relative Humidity

Posted: 13 Sep 2016 05:34 AM

Relative Humidity is one of the more commonly expressed weather variables. It represents the percentage capacity that the air is full of water vapor. Since the value is relative, it is difficult to directly compare the value at different air temperatures. While the air certainly feels drier in the winter time, the relative humidity values are just as high as the summer time. The featured chart presents a computed climatology of RH for Ames. The blue bars represent the daily range of RH values for each day this year. The blue, green, and black lines are simple averages of the daily min, avg, and max. The red line represents the frequency of days with the maximum RH at or above 95%. A lot going on with the chart! Of note for this time of year is that relative humidities are dropping. Demand for water and subsequent transpiration by agricultural crops is on the rapid decline. You may have noticed the corn and soybeans are turning brown now! These lower RH values help to dry out the fields and crops to allow for harvest.

Voting:
Good = 8
Bad = 0

Tags:   rh   humidity