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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

Dewpoint and relative humidity are huge factors in how temperature is felt. 110F in Arizona might still feel more comfortable than 90F in eastern regions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100th_meridian_west

>In the United States, this meridian roughly marks the boundary between the semi-arid climate in the west and the humid continental and humid subtropical climates in the east and is used as shorthand to refer to that arid-humid boundary.

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I always feel hotter with the low humidity. It's stickier and possibly more uncomfortable if you aren't used to it with high humidity. But even low 90s with very low humidity feels like inside an oven to me. I was working outside all day yesterday and it was about 95 with with 60-70% humidity and it felt great with a slight breeze.

You were dehydrated.

I don't know. I was just in Northwest Arkansas with 100°F and 99% humidity and then a day later in Phoenix Arizona with 100°F and ≈30% humidity (at midnight!) and it felt similarly oppressive...

> Northwest Arkansas with 100°F and 99% humidity

People like to throw numbers like 90°F at 90%+ humidity. It doesn't work like this. If you look at the hourly data for Bentonville, AR (Northwest Arkansas) on the hottest day of the month [1] you see that by the time temperature got to 101°F humidity was at 32%. It is sticky as hell, but I guess as a number 30% doesn't sound impressive enough.

[1] https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/ar/bentonville...

100°F and 99% humidity is a dew point of 100. The highest recorded dew point ever on earth is 95.

No, I do not believe that you were just in Northwest Arkansas with 100°F and 99% humidity.

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