It’s getting hotter and more humid in the north. At face value the temperatures don’t look too much – but factor in humidity and suddenly it feels much warmer. Humidity and heat combine to make conditions feel even warmer. The higher the humidity the less the air can absorb moisture, including sweat on your body – so we feel hotter.

If you had a restless sleep last night you may find more are coming – and that you’re not alone.

And it’s not just Auckland and northern NZ – although those regions are more exposed to the humidity and the heat, others may have just dry heat (many in the east) or humid but not hot (like the West Coast).

The new detailed daily data section at RuralWeather shows humidity in graph form day by day, night by night. We also show the Humidex reading, to give you a general idea as to how much warmer it will feel.

As you can see, today is a humid day in Auckland (and therefore Hamilton, Tauranga, Whangarei and surrounds).

Here’s a screenshot of the Detailed Daily Data section – in this one we’ve highlighted the “Humidity” column…the numbers show humidity in % form:

And once the sun goes down tonight, the humidity goes back up into the 90% range – meaning it will feel warmer than it is:

We also use the Humidex which Environment Canada (Canada’s MetService but non-commercial) kindly helped set up for us. Humidex and ‘feels like’ temperatures are subjective but they also do give some idea as to when humidity and heat will meet and when you’re likely to feel more uncomfortable.

So this afternoon the high is around 25 degrees, but the Humidex bumps that up to 31 degrees:

And then tonight, that Humidex/Feels Like temperature with cloudier skies, humidity in the 90% range and air temperature of around 20 degrees may make it feel more like the mid 20s for some – again, subjective but you get the point, the nights this week may feel warmer than the air temperature represents:

– RuralWeather.co.nz (please note it takes 10 seconds to load the data homepage first time)