Day 2 - 195 -- Tropical Air Mass

The third named tropical storm of the season has passed by, though out into the Atlantic. Yesterday and today have had heavy cloud and humidity along with stronger breezes. The latter made the humidity bearable and created a much cooler late afternoon. Tonight is more humid than last night, so it is unlikely that any windows will be opened. I discovered soon after moving to this end of the country, that even though the temperature outside is cooler than in the house, opening the windows serves only to further raise the humidity inside the house. So rather than cooling things, it makes inside feel so much hotter and uncomfortable. This, of course, affects sleep, which in turn affects mood the next day <smile>.

Three storms seems more than usual for this early in the season, even though the expectation is a less active than usual year in the Atlantic. I still marvel when I walk out my front door into a tropical air mass -- in all seasons it is a surprise. I come from a part of the country where we add moisture to the indoor air with humidifiers and now I find myself with two de-humidifiers in the house! The one in the basement runs almost continuously from May to October. I turn the one on upstairs with much less regularity. Doing so is a trade off -- reducing the humidity in the air by 5-10% will increase the ambient temperature significantly -- but its a dry heat <grin>. Hot is hot, take my word for it.

Walking through the thick, heavy, wet air today, reminded me of trips I've made to the tropics. The saving grace was the cloud cover so it wasn't quite like Bangkok. This air reminded me of a song from a while back that seems to encompass the pleasures of tropical areas. The Band is a classic and this was one of the last hits before the group broke apart. Enjoy!

Kokomo -- The Beach Boys