It’s definitely acclimatization. We sold our house in Denver (very dry climate; wife is a Denver native and I’d lived mostly* in Colorado since 1975) last October after buying a fifth-wheel trailer in which to travel the country, and spent the fall and winter in New Mexico and Arizona (very low humidity). In May we started making our way south and east to get some warranty work done on our trailer, as the temperatures and humidity levels have climbed.
It’s 69 degrees in Denver as I write this (at 10 AM Mountain time) with a 73% humidity level, for a heat index of … 69 degrees. That humidity level, unless it’s a remarkably wet day, will surely drop throughout the day. We’re just not used to this level of combined heat and humidity yet, but hopefully we will be by the time to temperatures drop in the fall.
*9I lived in Houston for about a year and a half in the mid-1990s, working for the Houston Post until it closed. I moved there with my pickup that I bought in a mountain town in Colorado where I’d previously lived, and it didn’t have air conditioning (because who needs air conditioning in the Colorado mountains?) and I had no idea I’d be moving to southeast Texas in a year or two. Misery is driving a 30-minute commute in 95 degrees and 95% humidity at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, with no air conditioning. Houston is a lovely city, however.
We are staying in our fifth-wheel trailer about an hour north of Clifton, just off I-40. It’s a beautiful area, and we really appreciated being able to visit Shiloh National Military Park (about 30 miles southwest of Clifton) on the Fourth of July. To get this back on topic, a ranger there commented on my perspiration levels; come to think of it, a waiter in Memphis did the same last week. As Great_Antibob surmised, it’s acclimatization. Having grown up in Colorado where we received a little over of foot of precipitation annually, I do appreciate some humidity – I really do. There is a sweet spot of heat and humidity, however, and it doesn’t happen in the middle of summer.
I’ve worked in alfalfa fields in the summer baling bucking (old school). Not really cool but basically tolerable. (At that point the hay has been cut and dried. Not so much fresh vegetation.)
The water being put onto the alfalfa fields evaporates very nicely in the 100º+ temperatures and the low humidity. Yes, it makes the immediate area more humid; but it’s also much cooler than away from the fields.
As someone who has lived on the east coast my whole life, where it is currently 89% humidity, I’m probably uniquely unqualified to answer. But I’m gonna anyway. Back 11 or 12 years ago we experienced weather one day I never had before or since: it was 100F but the humidity that day was for some reason only about 30%. It was amazing how different that is from even a day in the upper 80s with 80+% humidity.
Hot and humid, definitely. At least with dry, you have a chance of a breeze. Humidity? Forget about it. You feel all sticky and sweaty and gross and it’s just one big mess. As someone said, the only way to deal with it is AC or going swimming. And it sucks when you can’t open the windows because all it does is let the heat in.
Granted I prefer the cold anyways, but if I have to deal with the heat, please, let it be dry.
I live in NE Minnesota. Most of our hot days are also humid. It’s 9:30am, 71 degrees with 77% humidity. 71 isn’t considered hot even around here, but as the day progresses the temp will rise.
BUT, I do not complain. All I have to do is think about a 30 below winter day and I’m as happy as can be. Bring on the humidity!! Unfortunately, it will not last forever.
Hot and Humid for the win, er, loss? Walking out of an airport to feel like you are being pressed from all sides after spending time in a slightly warmer yet drier climate really brings it home as to which I prefer. Yes, I get used to the humidity after being back for a while, but there is no getting used to it period with hotter climes when it is dry. I like cool winters as well with low humidity so give me “dry heat” any day.
Years ago, when Deb was raising goats, we spent an afternoon at a goat show, standing on the South side of a metal barn on a concrete slab cooking over a grill. The temperature got to 107° F, but it was only mildly unpleasant. Generally, when it gets to 80° F and +60% humidity. I am ready to retire to the closest air conditioned location.
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What I’ve learned from 40 years of living in Phoenix is: If there is shade, even triple-digits are tolerable. Working in the blazing sun is pretty brutal, but still better than working outside in Washington, DC, where I grew up. But, working under a shade structure isn’t too bad, even if it’s 110°.
I’ll throw yet another log on the ‘Hot and Humid’ being the worse of the two, having spend several summers living in Galveston TX and most of my school years in Las Cruces NM, I feel I have experienced both ranges in the extreme.
One additional side, and I think others have had this as well, is if you experience both nearly sequentially and can make a ‘side-by-side’ comparison as it were. Around 1988-89, I was in Cruces for the summer, and we flew to Houston TX for two weeks in July, then back to Cruces. The temps were specified as the OP +/- 5 degrees or so, and Cruces absolutely felt cooler when we returned despite daytime highs of 105 or so.
Lastly, something related to the OP but not explicitly mentioned, is the side effects of the perceived heat - some have spoken about dry skin (which is chronic), but I’ll take that every day over sweaty heat-rash and dampness induced abrasion from clothes in high humidity summer months. I just cannot STAND some of those side-effects of the combination of heat and humidity.
