Augusta's local weather

Owing to special circumstances, there will be no postings to this blog for the next 11 days.

Good morning from the northwest end of Augusta, Maine. IT is an overcast and somewhat dreary morning. This morning's readings are:

a relative humidity of 89% with a Dew Point of 56.3ºF.

The temperature is 59.6ºF.

We barely have any wind  today, my readings ranging from 1.3 mph to 4.0 mph out of the North by NorthWest. The highest gust recorded in the past month has yet to exceed 17.9 mph. 

our Barometric pressure is 29.83 and rising.

We are expecting rain today, with windy and rainy conditions predominating by this afternoon.

As summer draws to an end, I thought it might be of interest for many readers to know what the "heat index" that we all hear aboput during the summer months really is. In my next posting, I will post the Wind Chill explanation.

 

*Heat indexFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia*

The heat index (HI) is an index that combines air temperature and relative humidity in an attempt to determine the human-perceived equivalent temperature — how hot it feels, termed the felt air temperature. The human body normally cools itself by perspiration, or sweating, which evaporates and carries heat away from the body. However, when the relative humidity is high, the evaporation rate is reduced, so heat is removed from the body at a lower rate causing it to retain more heat than it would in dry air. Measurements have been taken based on subjective descriptions of how hot subjects feel for a given temperature and humidity, allowing an index to be made which relates one temperature and humidity combination to another at a higher temperature in drier air.

The heat index was developed in 1978 by George Winterling as the "humiture," and was adopted by the National Weather Service a year later. It is derived from work carried out by Robert G. Steadman. Like the wind chill index, the heat index contains assumptions about the human body mass and height, clothing, amount of physical activity, thickness of blood, sunlight and ultraviolet radiation exposure, and the wind speed. Significant deviations from these will result in heat index values which do not accurately reflect the perceived temperature.

In Canada, the similar "humidex" is used in place of the heat index. The humidex is not described here.