Study: 20 Florida cities are the most humid in US

People in Pinellas County know the misery of their sweltering summers, and now, everyone else will know it, too.

The two most humid cities in the United States are Pinellas Park and St. Petersburg, according to an analysis by a London-based home product evaluation company.

The 20 most humid cities in the United States, in fact, are all from Florida, the analysis said — 17 from Southeast Florida, the two from Tampa Bay and one in Southwest Florida. Central Florida was represented by Melbourne, which came in No. 7 in the state and Palm Bay at No. 15.

Released last week, the analysis by HouseFresh, using data from the private Minneapolis-based weather-tracking website Weather Spark, features Florida in a way that humidity studies in earlier years have not.

Florida accounts for four of the 10 most humid U.S. cities in a 2021 analysis by worldpopulationreview. com, with New Orleans, Jacksonville and Houston the top three. This study is limited to major urban centers.

In a 2020 analysis by Groundworks, another home product evaluator, no Florida cities appear in the top ten. This study’s top three humid cities: Port Arthur, Texas; Lake Charles, Louisiana; and Brownsville, Texas.

If the two Pinellas County cities are, in fact, the most humid, blame the region’s unique geography — sandwiched between Tampa Bay on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other, said Jennifer Hubbard of the National Weather Service’s Tampa Bay office.

“Pinellas County is a peninsula on another peninsula, so we’re completely surrounded by water,” said Hubbard, who had not reviewed the HouseFresh analysis. “That tends to keep things pretty moist.”

Proximity to the water coupled with a lack of cooling, drying arctic air makes

Jennifer Hubbard, National Weather Service’s Tampa Bay office the Tampa Bay area more humid than many other areas of the southeast and the rest of the country, Hubbard said.

HouseFresh also blames wind patterns that spread humid air across Florida and the moisture released into the air from the vegetation prevalent across the peninsula.

The company’s analysis measures humidity comfort level using the dew point temperature, the level to which the air must be cooled in order for it to become saturated. The dew point determines whether perspiration will evaporate from the skin, cooling the body. Lower dew points feel drier, higher dew points feel more humid.

The analysis measures what portion of each city’s muggiest day reaches each of six humidity levels — miserable, oppressive, muggy, humid, comfortable and dry. All 20 Florida cities listed were labeled as “miserable” for at least 36% of the muggiest day.

The study says Pinellas Park was “miserable” 48.7% of its muggiest day, “oppressive” 49.6% and merely muggy 1.8%. A few miles to the south, St. Petersburg was “miserable” 48.1% of the day, “oppressive” 49.8% and muggy 2.1%.

The most humid city in the world was Patna, India, according to the analysis, with a “miserable” level at 99.2%. Other Indian cities follow just behind.