"What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance," wrote Jane Austen. That's putting it mildly.
I should be serving towels with this forecast. Temperatures aren't close to record highs, but it's the amount of water in the air that has us all hot and bothered.
Which gets into the argument of "relative humidity vs. dew point." Relative humidity is, as the term implies, relative (to the temperature). RH of 90 percent when it's 65 doesn't feel so bad, but 40percent RH when it's 95 is intolerable.
On the other hand, dew point is an absolute measure of how much water is in the air. A 60 dew point is humid, 70 is tropical, 80 is unbearable and dangerous.
Models bring more gangs of noisy T-storms into town tonight; another inch or two of rain is possible. A wave of T-storms ripple along a stalled frontal boundary again Friday, but models still bring a welcome push of cooler, drier, cleaner Canadian air into Minnesota this weekend. By Sunday we'll all be breathing easier!
