How is the High Humidity and Low Precipitation combination possible? (climate, warm)

[ragnarkar]

For me, humidity is not that bad if you can get relief from it due to rain but i see there are some places like Dubai that are deserts but also have the humidity of a jungle, the worst of both worlds. How's that even possible?

[Isleofpalms85]

The same reason that the arctic and subarctic regions have extreme cold yet comparatively dry winters when compared to more temperate climate regions.

[forgotten username]

same is true here in winter.

[PCALMike]

Because they get their humidity from the proximity to the extremely warm Persian Gulf for half of the year.

[nei]

humid air doesn't trigger rain unless there's some instability. Stagnant high pressure, evaporation makes the surface more humid but doesn't reach higher up. Most of the Mediterranean Sea has muggy, dry summers. If southern California had hotter coastal temperatures it'd have similar.

Unlike the eastern US, where the humid gulf air reaches a 1000 miles inland or more, humidity in dry summer climates is limited to places close to the sea. Here's Europe atm:



You can see in the driest summer climate: North Africa, southern Spain, Greece and Turkey humidity drops fast away from the coast. Currently a ridge over western Europe that's further north than usual. San Diego is having some rainless muggy weather right now

[ragnarkar]

Originally Posted by nei

humid air doesn't trigger rain unless there's some instability. Stagnant high pressure, evaporation makes the surface more humid but doesn't reach higher up. Most of the Mediterranean Sea has muggy, dry summers. If southern California had hotter coastal temperatures it'd have similar.

Unlike the eastern US, where the humid gulf air reaches a 1000 miles inland or more, humidity in dry summer climates is limited to places close to the sea. Here's Europe atm:



You can see in the driest summer climate: North Africa, southern Spain, Greece and Turkey humidity drops fast away from the coast. Currently a ridge over western Europe that's further north than usual. San Diego is having some rainless muggy weather right now

Yeah, lots of suffering in San Diego right now.. Although humidity in California generally isn't too bad, it can still rival places like the Gulf Coast and Florida during summer heat waves, but unlike the latter places, it still doesn't rain much which arguably makes the suffering even worse. On the other hand, places like the Pacific Northwest, for some reason, are fairly rainy and yet rarely encounter high humidity even when they're hit by heat waves.