Humid heat or dry heat: What is worse?
A higher dew point prevents your sweat from evaporating and can make it harder for your body to cool.
What's worse dry heat or humid heat?
FOX Weather Meteorologist Britta Merwin explains why the combination of humidity and heat can be deadly. When it's humid your sweat cannot evaporate which prevents your body from cooling.
Heat usually dominates the weather headlines during the summer, but depending on where you are in the U.S., 100 degrees can feel very different.
In Orlando, Florida, 98 degrees with 78% humidity will make you feel like you just stepped into a hot shower, but 112 degrees in Phoenix, Arizona, with 16% humidity will feel extremely hot. However, the way your body responds to the heat with less moisture in the air is a little different.
FOX Weather Meteorologist Britta Merwin said there is science behind that wet, "gross" feeling with humid heat found in the Southeast.
A dew point refers to the moisture in the air, which can make it harder for your body to cool down. The higher the dew point, the more moisture.
Residents cool off in the Liz Carpenter Splash Pad at Butler Park on July 16, 2023 in Austin, Texas, during a heat wave. Tens of millions of Americans braced for more sweltering temperatures Sunday, July 16, as brutal conditions threatened to break records due to a relentless heat dome that has baked parts of the country all week. (Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO / AFP) (Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images)
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"We start to sweat, and when it's humid, that sweat cannot evaporate, and that's how we cool down as humans," Merwin said. "The sweat evaporates from our skin, and evaporative cooling takes place. So, it's a process that as you are sweating and that sweating evaporates, your internal body temperature actually cools down."
Essentially, a higher dew point in the 70s can make it harder for your body to cool. If your body is unable to cool down, you could start to experience symptoms of heat exhaustion or in severe cases, heat stroke.
A sign warns of extreme heat danger at Zabriskie Point on Sunday, July 16, 2023, in Death Valley, CA. Even at dusk, the temperature is 123 degrees. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
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Dry heat "is a different animal," Merwin said.
Dry heat can be found in the desert West in places like Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and California. While dry heat does allow your body's sweat to evaporate, extreme temperatures can still be deadly.
"The caveat here in the Southwest, we're talking about 115 to – in Death Valley – 125 degrees," Merwin said. "That is totally different. We're talking about extreme temperatures."
Extreme temperatures have been deadly this summer under both dry and humid conditions, with heat-related deaths reported from California to Texas.