Zorchalate

I think that what's counter-intuitive about it is this: Increasing the temperature DOES lower the "Relative" Humidity but. not the "Absolute Humidity". The "absolute humidity" is the amount of moisture in the air (usually measured in grams per cubic meter or something like that). The "relative humidity" (which is what they mean when they talk about "humidity") equals: "(amount of moisture in the air)/(amount of moisture that the air could hold at the current temperature)". The higher the temperature, the more moisture a cubic meter of air can hold (it doubles for about every 20 degree farenheit increase). Hence "raising the temperature" will NOT change the "absolute moisture content" (the numerator in the equation for relative humidity) but it WILL increase the "amount of moisture content that there CAN be without saturation or condensation" (the denominator in the equation). As with ANY fraction, a bigger denominator means a smaller fraction (assuming the numerator to be the same). Therefore, the "relative humidity" upon increasing air that is already "hot" WILL go down. The "dilemma" is that you would think that if the relative humidity goes down, it will FEEL cooler. That is true IF you keep the temperature the same. If you "raise the temperature" thereby "lowering the relative humidity", you will get two factors working against each other. The "increased temperature" will make it feel hotter while the "decreased relative humidity" will make it feel "cooler". I think that YOUR question is: Which will win out?? Will the increased feeling of hotness from the temperature outweigh the decreased feeling of hotness from the lower relative humidity (thereby making an overall effect of feeling hotter)?? Or will the decreased feeling of hotness from "lower relative humidity" be greater (thereby making an overall effect of feeling cooler)?? I have looked at charts where the absolute moisture content in the air is held constant and seen what the relative humidity is at various temperatures. Then I've looked at the Heat Index given by certain temperatures and certain relative humidity. Whenever the same amount of water vapor is in the air and thereby the relative humidity is strictly decreased by raising the temperature, the "hotter feeling" from the increased temperature has ALWAYS WON OUT OVER the "cooler feeling" from the decreased relative humidity. And now that I'm thinking about it, one could look at it like this: In the course of a day, the "actual Moisture content" usually does not change much if at all. What usually changes is the temperature. This being the case, the relative humidity (RH) is at it's LOWEST when the temperature is HIGHEST (usually about 2 or 3 in the afternoon) and at it's highest when the temperature is LOWEST. Yet we always feel hotter at the time of the highest temperature/lowest relative humidity than we do at the time of the lowest temperature/highest relative humidity. This, of course, is assuming that the only thing that's changing is the temperature. When the "moisture content changes", that's another can of worms. But I think that YOUR "dilemma" or confusion was that you wondered if increasing the temperature might make it feel cooler because it would decrease the realitive humidity and from my experience, I believe that I can say an emphatic NO. Matt