heat-humidity

Eric Gerber

Funny You Should Ask: It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Humidity

Funny You Should Ask

The Humid Condition

By Marty Melosi

Humidity.

Humility.

It’s the Humidity, not the Heat.

You can hide from the sun in the shade.

Shiner beer or lemonade.
Jump in a pool.

A great big hat, a cotton shirt, cool sunglasses.
Indoors use a fan–or AC.

Humidity. Humility.

Outdoors and humidity don’t seem to mix.

Walk a block in the heat, but only a few steps in high
humidity.

Wet is wet. Damp is damp. Moist is moist. Sweat is sweat.

No such thing as drip dry.

Mold and humidity—a lethal duo.
Yet.

The tropics have their charms.
Pina coladas and coastal breezes clearly
are better than northern freezes.

What’s so bad about saunas and steam baths?

Try to keep curly hair curly in the baking sun.

Heat stroke, but no humidity stroke.

Skin cancer, but no humidity cancer.

And you can’t get a sunburn from humidity.


Melosi is Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen University Professor and Director of the Center for Public History at UH. Occasionally, he finds himself overcome with the poetic impulse.