California wildfires grow amid warm temperatures, gusty winds

Crews battling wildfires across California on Tuesday, including the Post fire in Los Angeles County, face another day of warm summer heat and gusty winds that will push flames into tinder-dry fuel, weather forecasters warned.

Searing heat scorches US from Chicago to East Coast

Extreme heat and high humidity smothered the central and northeastern United States on Tuesday, with temperature records expected to melt away in the coming days, authorities warned, as wildfires sizzled in the west.

Humidity

Humidity is a term for the amount of water vapor in the air, and can refer to any one of several measurements of humidity. Formally, humid air is not "moist air" but a mixture of water vapor and other constituents of air, and humidity is defined in terms of the water content of this mixture, called the Absolute humidity. In everyday usage, it commonly refers to relative humidity, expressed as a percent in weather forecasts and on household humidistats; it is so called because it measures the current absolute humidity relative to the maximum. Specific humidity is a ratio of the water vapor content of the mixture to the total air content (on a mass basis). The water vapor content of the mixture can be measured either as mass per volume or as a partial pressure, depending on the usage.

In meteorology, humidity indicates the likelihood of precipitation, dew, or fog. High relative humidity reduces the effectiveness of sweating in cooling the body by reducing the rate of evaporation of moisture from the skin. This effect is calculated in a heat index table, used during summer weather.

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