ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Here in Western New York this week, the heat has been the big weather story with highs in the mid and low 90s and heat indices near or over 100 degrees.

With that, when you have stepped outside you have begun to sweat almost instantly.

Why do our bodies sweat?

To keep cool of course. Our body wants to stay at an internal temperature of 98.6 degrees. However, when the air temperature begins to rise our temperature rises on the surface of our skin heating the inside of our body. So, our body needs a way to cool down and we sweat in order to do that.

As we sweat, little water droplets build on the surface of our skin so they can evaporate and cool us down through a process knows as evaporative cooling. It sounds a little crazy, but evaporation is a cooling process. Say we have a water droplet left in the sun, the sun will heat up the internal temperature of that water temperature to change it from liquid water to water vapor. So, the water droplet itself heats up, but the surrounding air warming the water droplet cools as the energy is transferred.

Through this process, our skin can cool down as our sweat gets evaporated. However, this week in particular it has been difficult to do so due to the high humidity. On Wednesday, Rochester hit a dew point of 75 degrees. That was the first time in which we did that since August 25, 2021. That soupy air has made it feel like Florida for much of the day on Wednesday.

An even higher mark to feel like the “Sunshine State” would be to hit a dew point of 80 degrees. We did not do that on Wednesday, but the last time we did that was July 5, 2018. We are not expected to hit that mark but nevertheless, relief from the high humidity won’t arrive until Monday.