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Right now the NWS is saying 96F, 81% humidity, heat index of 127F in Atlantic.
48 miles west - Omaha is a 117F heat index.
28 miles south - Red Oak is 120F heat index.
Des Moines is 107.
The humidity for all these places is consistently crazy.
I live in Orlando, FL. I've never seen the heat index over 114.
Right now (I work in the suburbs, not downtown) it's 91F, feels like 97 with 49% humidity. That's fairly typical here for the afternoon. The humidity ramps up in the evening through the morning, dries out in the sun, then the cycle repeats.
I also lived in Fayetteville, NC and Columbia, SC - the Carolina Sandhills - where it gets hot as you know what. The expression was "ain't nothing but a screen door between Hell and Columbia." and right now it's 98F with 40% humidity - feels like 114F. Similar day/night cycle to Orlando at least in the summer.
The chances that all 4 sensors in Iowa/Nebraska are broken is pretty slim but yeah, that's friggin' crazy. That's some Persian Gulf type heat. No thank you, sir.
A location in the coastal SE will always be kept below these extreme Heat Index values simply because near the ocean the highs usually stall out in the low to mid 90s, so even with some pretty crazy humidity it can't get that high.
Relative humidity values in the 50-70% range in the afternoon are not unrealistic in a heat wave in the humid parts of the country. If you then in the Plains have highs that can go easily into the triple digits you get extreme heat index values.
That's 3 days straight of 100% RH with every reading regardless of any other conditions. That's a clear malfunction.
There are other stations where the malfunction is less obvious but things look 'outside spec' as well. Newton Municipal Airport reported a 100% RH at 1 pm with a temp of 86 and a DP of 86 with 'scattered clouds' and 9 mile visibility. That's also pretty suspect. Grinnell which is a few miles east reported 77% RH at the same time (which is still a lot, but more credible).
FWIW I don't think it'd be that crazy for several of these sensors to be malfunctioning. It's not unlikely that several of these might be the same SKU perhaps even installed by the same crew given they're in the same part of the country.
I might accept it as someone who is familiar with how the crops can affect the weather around here. When I stepped outside this morning I thought it felt like Florida. You know, when it feels like someone wet a blanket and warmed it up in the microwave and then dropped it over your head when you step out the door.
It seems to me the numbers are real. its a combination of heat and humidity and added to it corn sweat that pushed the dew-points even higher. Probably nothing wrong with the equipment. Should they count? Because if you walking by the weather station it probably does feel like 150 degrees. Yet if they did not grow so much corn there the dew points would be 10 degrees cooler.
In the summer of 2016, the National Weather service in Des Moines, Iowa tweeted that corn can add a staggering amount of water to the atmosphere and boost dew points a full 5 to 10 degrees.
Late Friday parts of Central Wisconsin, near the Wisconsin River, may have experienced dew point numbers into the middle 80s to near 90, pushing the "feels like" temperatures over 130 degrees.
That's because tropical humidity was transported north from the Gulf of Mexico by southerly winds. The hot winds blew over vast fields of corn across the Midwest, absorbing moisture along the way. The result: corn sweat.
It's no coincidence that the highest dew point ever recorded in the U.S., 90 degrees, was also nearby, in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1995. Here's how corn sweat works. In an effort to cool down, humans perspire by sweating liquid water, but plants transpire by sweating gaseous water vapor. Corn stalks suck up water from their roots and then release that moisture in the form of water vapor through small pores, called stomata, on the surface of their leaves. The technical term for release of moisture from both the soil and the crops themselves is evapotranspiration.
That lofted vapor moistens the atmosphere spiking dew points near and downwind of the cornfields.
Here's how corn sweat works. In an effort to cool down, humans perspire by sweating liquid water, but plants transpire by sweating gaseous water vapor. Corn stalks suck up water from their roots and then release that moisture in the form of water vapor through small pores, called stomata, on the surface of their leaves. The technical term for release of moisture from both the soil and the crops themselves is evapotranspiration.[/b][/i]
That lofted vapor moistens the atmosphere spiking dew points near and downwind of the cornfields.
Which is why dewpoint hygrometers shouldn't be located near corn fields. If there is a dewpoint of between 85F and 90F, that means there should be dew on the ground the next morning as the air temperature goes below the dew point.
BTW, corn are C4 plants. C4 plants open their stomates at night to take in CO2 gas for daytime photosynthesis for which light is required. That nighttime CO2 gets fixed into a compound (oxaloacetate) which allows the C to get stored until daytime use.
With stomates closed during the daytime, water loss is reduced. Plants don't "sweat" to cool down, but rather open their stomates for gas exchange, and the evaporation of water takes place from within the intercellular air space within the stomatal pores. Water movement is required to facilitate gas exchange and, of course, move nutrients upwards from the roots.
9 out of 10 times my Dews will make any other place blush. Living right on the gulf with a west flow with nasty water temps of 88 to 94f will make anyone roll over and die.
My avg low is 78 to 84f for months and avg dew is 74 to 84f. With a east flow now it is 68f and makes 95f feel much better than 95f with a west flow and dews near 79f.
Which is why dewpoint hygrometers shouldn't be located near corn fields. If there is a dewpoint of between 85F and 90F, that means there should be dew on the ground the next morning as the air temperature goes below the dew point.
BTW, corn are C4 plants. C4 plants open their stomates at night to take in CO2 gas for daytime photosynthesis for which light is required. That nighttime CO2 gets fixed into a compound (oxaloacetate) which allows the C to get stored until daytime use.
With stomates closed during the daytime, water loss is reduced. Plants don't "sweat" to cool down, but rather open their stomates for gas exchange, and the evaporation of water takes place from within the intercellular air space within the stomatal pores. Water movement is required to facilitate gas exchange and, of course, move nutrients upwards from the roots.
I get that but look at Sky Harbor in Phoenix. It runs several degrees higher day and night all summer than similar local stations that are not located with acres and acres of concrete and asphalt surrounding them. Yet its the official station for Phoenix. I am going to research exactly where these stations are located in these towns. It could be the whole town is smothered by this corn sweat.
9 out of 10 times my Dews will make any other place blush. Living right on the gulf with a west flow with nasty water temps of 88 to 94f will make anyone roll over and die.
My avg low is 78 to 84f for months and avg dew is 74 to 84f. With a east flow now it is 68f and makes 95f feel much better than 95f with a west flow and dews near 79f.
Sounds like you really love where you live. I lived for a few years close to the gulf in Texas. Months of crazy humidity and dew points and mosquitos year round that nightly spraying by the county never could fully stop. The town next to me had a mosquito festival each year. If you can't beat them join them. And every few years running for your life when a hurricane barreled down on you. I finally had enough.
Sounds like you really love where you live. I lived for a few years close to the gulf in Texas. Months of crazy humidity and dew points and mosquitos year round that nightly spraying by the county never could fully stop. The town next to me had a mosquito festival each year. If you can't beat them join them. And every few years running for your life when a hurricane barreled down on you. I finally had enough.
We get a lot of mosquitoes here too, although mainly in late May to September.
I'm at the point where mosquitoes no longer make me itchy. They still bite me, and I can feel the little pricking sensation from them doing so, I just don't get any lasting itchiness from them like I used to.
Maybe it's from that one time that I got 500+ bug bites on my legs when I went for a long hike while wearing shorts and no DDT in the northern Ontario bush in mid June? The bugs were especially bad during the second half of the hike, since there was some rain around the mid-point, and then everything was wet and the bugs were really active from about 4pm to 9pm. I think I built up a tolerance after that. I'll get a dozen or more bites every evening when I'm gardening and never feel itchy.
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I lived for a few years close to the gulf in Texas. Months of crazy humidity and dew points and mosquitos year round that nightly spraying by the county never could fully stop. The town next to me had a mosquito festival each year. If you can't beat them join them. And every few years running for your life when a hurricane barreled down on you. I finally had enough.
