We are already a few days into August here in Houston, and the heat has no sign of relenting anytime soon.. Temperatures have been flirting with triple digits for a couple of weeks now and the humidity has been in full force for quite some time.

Since moving here to Houston, I have learned a bit about humidity and come to find out that the standard “relative humidity” reported by weather services all across the county is close to meaningless. Apparently, as the temperature increases, relative humidity goes down as warm air can hold more moisture.

What does not fluctuate with the temperature is the dew point. Quite simply, the dew point is the temperature at which the air can not hold any more water vapor or, 100% relative humidity. Once the temperature goes below the dew point, precipitation, or “dew” will occur.

A high dew point, therefore, means that there is quite a bit of water vapor in the air and it will feel “muggy”. The body cools itself by sweat evaporating off the skin, but if the surrounding atmosphere can’t absorb any more moisture, the body will produce more and more sweat to try to cool off and it will feel quite yucky (technical term).

That is why I spent most of July out in Oregon and I begin August in Vermont. Call me a lot of things, but hopefully “dummy” is not one of them!

Even though I am out of town to start the month, Houston soldiers on without me and for the entire month, the city celebrates “Restaurant Weeks” (because one or two weeks is just not enough). With that in mind, my monthly article celebrates three restaurants in our immediate vicinity that we particularly enjoy as wine lovers.

Here is the article from Spring Branch Plus: