Weather hot and humid – and maybe wet – for weekend

It could be a warm and humid weekend for the Grand Marais Arts Festival. That kind of weather can often bring thunderstorms. According to National Weather Service meteorologist Carol Christensen in Duluth we’re likely to have a mixed weather weekend.

“Well, it’s going to be a very nice midweek. We have high pressure moving in, which means generally fair weather, mild temperatures – comfortable temperatures for us. Toward the weekend it’s going to get more humid, more warm and with that comes the chance of thunderstorms for the weekend, Friday and Saturday.”

The hot and humid weather we had earlier in the week, and may experience again on the weekend is related to the dew point.

Dew point is the best measure of how much moisture’s in the air. So dew point in the temperature we need to cool the air for condensation to occur. So, the higher the dew point, the more moisture in the air. So we use dew point to compute relative humidity. But relative humidity is all relative based on what the temperature is. Warmer air can hold a lot more moisture, which is why the dew point can go well up into the 70’s.”

Christenson said the high dew point and high temps is hard on northlanders.

“Gets into the 70’s and we’re all just melting.”