High Humidity

Humidity is the amount of water vapor in the air. If there is a lot of water vapor in the air, the humidity will be high.

Persistent Humidity And Rising Temperature Make City Sweat.

A brutal combination of high humidity and rising temperature give city an unusually sticky and uncomfortable feeling. It becomes worse after rains. When the city's temperature becomes 40 degree celsius(C) five degree above normal, while the humidity peaked at 82%,

The two together gives city  a wet bulb temperature of 29.4 degree C, a level at which the outdoor heat becomes risky even for healthy people. The combination  of humidity with heat  is worse for human health since people cool down by sweating. Wet bulb temperature reflects the condition someone will feel outdoors- once these measure passes32 degree C people are at extream risk of adverse health effects.

Another measure is the heat index (HI), which too accounts for humidity in how the temperature affects a person, but this reflects conditions in shade. When the HI in Delhi touches 50 degree C. This number peaked at 51 degree C on June 14.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted similar weather for weekend with high humidity and isolated showers. It did, however forecast increased rains from Monday till Wednesday, which will consequently push down temperatures and bring residents some relief from prickly heat. "High humidity will continue to persist and this is the feature of the monsoon season. Even with the trough away. Moisture content can stay around 50-60% which makes it uncomfortable to be outdoors. We can expect an increase in rain  intensity further.

Delhi remain dry on friday barring hyper-local spell of sharp rain over Mungeshpur, which recieve 21 mm of showers in the afternoon.  Relative lengthy spell was due to a shift in the monsoon trough, which is now over south Rajasthan. As a result, over the past few days there has been a gradual rise in the city's maximum temperature..

Safdarjung representative of Delhi's weather, hit a maximum of  39.4 Degree C on Friday, 38.4 Degree C  on thursday. 36.5 Degree C on Wednesday and 33.4 on tuesday. This has also translated into a gradual rise in wet bulb temperature at the same time. On tuesday at 2.30 PM, It was 28.5 degrees C this rose to 29.2 on wednesday and 19.5 on Thursday and 29.6 on friday. At 5.30 PM on friday this crept up to 29.7 degree C.

Expert say being outdoors when the wet bulb nears 30 degrees C presents the risk of heat strokes, possible light headedness and nausea,  from 28 degree onwards, there is considerable discomfort being outdoors and as it edges towards 30 degrees and beyond., there is significant risk of heatstroke. This is  because even though the body is  sweating, it is not being evaporated to cool down the body., as there is already  a lot of moisture in the air,"

Human body can still withstand dry heat, but as humidity levels increase along with heat, the ability to spend outdoors slowly decreases. Sweating is the body's reaction to cool itself, but beyond a point our body starts getting dehydrated and there can be serious health issues, including the risk of death among senior citizens and children when heat and humidity combine.

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