I just got an electric guitar! Should I keep it out?

I don’t think you really need to worry about humidity with your guitar. I’m not familiar with that guitar, but I suspect that it is made of laminates and is rather heavily braced and that it depends on the pickups for most of its sound (I’m not dissing your guitar - the same is true of a Gibson ES-175). Lightly built acoustic guitars are more vulnerable to changes in humidity.

Having said that, “normal” humidity for most guitars is around 50%. This is because most builders control their humidity and set it to about that. If your guitar is subjected to dry conditions for more than a few days (below 35%), the wood can shrink, possibly causing cracks to develop. Conversely, if it is very humid, the wood will swell, although generally it will not cause any irreversible problems (the action my change because of bellying near the bridge, but this will usually reverse itself when the guitar dries out. For myself, I use a humidifier during the winter months (I live in the Northeast) and I have a hygrometer. Otherwise I don’t worry about it. Most of the problems have to do with heating during the winter months (the relative humidity outside may be 50%, but if you heat the air without adding moisture, you decrease the relative humidity). In SoCal you probably don’t do that much heating.

The general rule of thumb with heat and humidity is “If you’re feeling uncomfortable, so is your guitar.” The important thing to remember is not to leave your guitar someplace where it is likely to get cooked or frozen. Leaving it in the trunk of your car during winter or summer is a no no.

And humidity, well, don’t take it into the sauna with you, don’t leave it near the hot tub so you can gaze on it while you soak. Realize that your instrument is sensitive to the changes created by heat and humidity and use your common sense.

This might all sound obvious, but there are thousands of horror stories out there from people who treated their guitar like it was functionally the same as a wrench or a tire iron. If you have a mindset that the guitar is a living thing, like a plant or a dog, and you need to think about caring for it as you would a living thing, you’ll do fine.

Stevie Ray used to use .13s on his, but then he tuned them down half a step, so you may consider trying that.

Whether to leave your guitar out or not is the age old question of beauty vs. function. If you leave your guitar out it will get dust and possibly marks from being knocked over. If you leave it in your case it will stay nice but you will probably play it less often. I personally leave mine in a case, but in a very accessible place. So whenever I want to play I don’t have to go digging through my closet or anything. I hate leaving my guitar out because then dust gets onto the oiled parts of the bridge and tuners, which is nearly impossible to get out.