High humidity levels have been relentless across southern New Brunswick this summer.
However, you may have noticed a more comfortable feel to the air over the past few days.
Ian Hubbard, a meteorologist at Environment Canada, said it is thanks to an air mass change over the region.
“We’ve actually got a little bit of cooler air, just slightly cooler, but definitely drier,” Hubbard said in an interview.
“Even though we’re still seeing some very warm temperatures across the region, we’re not seeing that moisture that really drives up the humidex.”
The drier air mass is also giving us some relief at night with cooler overnight low temperatures, said Hubbard.
In Moncton, the average overnight low during the month of July was around 17°C, according to Environment Canada. The overnight low reached 11.4°C on Monday, the lowest temperature recorded since late June.
It was a similar story in Saint John, where the average overnight low was around 14°C in July. The low of 7.8°C on Monday was the coolest temperature since June 23.
“Any time you have a humid air mass, it’s very hard to cool down and to lose that energy that’s there … and that really helps the temperatures during the daytime drive up even further,” said Hubbard.
“With a cooler air mass like this, you see those temperatures overnight get a little bit lower and also feel a lot more comfortable, allowing people and things to cool down during that overnight period.”
Hubbard said the air mass is expected to remain fairly dry over the next few days, with daytime highs in the low to mid 20s.
However, that is expected to change once again as we get toward the end of the week and into the weekend.
“We’ll start to see the moisture start to increase again and those humid values slowly start to creep up again by the weekend,” said Hubbard.
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