Metro Denver was smacked with unusual high humidity Tuesday morning. 9News Senior Meteorologist Chris Bianchi posted on social media around 6:30 a.m. that the dew point in the Mile High City was 66 degrees.
That’s more humid than Dallas, Nashville, Chicago, and Oklahoma City.
Meteorologist Kenley Bonner with the National Weather Service in Boulder said Denver’s high humidity is due to cooler temperatures behind a cold front.
“Behind that cold front, our relative humidity is going to be increased because we have cooler temperatures and Oklahoma still has hotter temperatures than what we're experiencing today,” Bonner said.
According to AccuWeather, temperatures in Dallas, Nashville, Chicago, and Oklahoma City were in the 90s as of 11:30 a.m. Tuesday. Dallas and Oklahoma City are under a heat advisory from noon to 7:00 p.m. Nashville is under an extreme heat warning through 8:00 p.m.
The dew point among the cities ranged from high 60s to mid-70 degrees. The “higher the dew point rises, the greater the amount of moisture in the air,” according to the National Weather Service.
Bonner said the dew point for Denver averages 40s and 50s around this time of the year. On really dry days, it can be lower.
“We're notorious for having the high-based convection. So, we get those gusty outflows, and that's because of our dew point and temperatures, there's such a big spread between the two,” Bonner said. “We have large dewpoint depressions, low dew points and high temperatures. That is where we get those gutsy outflows from the passing virga showers.”
Bonner said precipitation usually lowers the relative humidity.
“If you get multiple days of warmer temperature with no moisture or to get that out, you kind of have to wring it out,” Bonner said. “So, precipitation can help lower the relative humidity, and then, dry warmer temperatures will heat things up and lower that humidity again."
The high humidity is expected to break up over the next several days on the Front Range. The National Weather Service’s forecast for Denver includes showers and thunderstorms through Saturday night.
