Record Streak for Oppressive Humidity Set at New York's JFK Airport

Brian Donegan
Published: August 18,2016
If you live in the Northeast, you know it has been a hot week with tropical amounts of humidity that made it feel even more miserable as soon as you stepped outdoors.
In one location, the uncomfortable humidity stuck around for a record amount of time. JFK Airport in New York City broke the record for most consecutive hours of a dew point of 70 degrees Fahrenheit or higher Wednesday morning.
The dew point, or measure of the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, rose above 70 degrees at 8 p.m. EDT on Aug. 9. It remained at or above 70 degrees until 11 a.m. EDT Aug. 17, when it dropped to 66 degrees.

The previous record was 178 consecutive hours in August 2003, according to Alaskan climatologist Brian Brettschneider.
It is quite remarkable for a city at 40.7 degrees latitude to spend over a week socked into such an oppressively humid air mass; daily dew points in the 70s are typically found in the Deep South in the summer.
An 84-degree dew point was measured at JFK Airport Saturday afternoon, sending the heat index up to a searing 112 degrees.
(MORE: What is the Heat Index?)

The maximum dew points at JFK Airport from Aug. 11-17.

Very rarely do dew points rise to 80 degrees in the Northeast, let alone into the lower or mid-80s.
However, that 84-degree dew point reading at JFK Saturday may have been a little bit too high. According to the National Weather Service office in Upton, New York, the dew point measurement was coming from a backup system, so the accuracy of that reading is uncertain.
Either way, it was still unbearably humid in the New York City metro area over the weekend, as well as across much of the Northeast.
Here are a few of the maximum dew point readings across the Northeast late last week and into the weekend.
Aug. 12:

Montgomery, New York	81 degrees
Baltimore	80 degrees
Washington D.C.	78 degrees
Boston	78 degrees
Syracuse, New York	77 degrees

Aug. 13:

JFK Airport	84 degrees
Montgomery, New York	80 degrees
Wilmington, Delaware	79 degrees
Philadelphia	78 degrees
Washington D.C.	78 degrees
Albany, New York	77 degrees

Luckily, for those who are sick of the heat and humidity, a pattern change is on the way for the East next week.
(MORE: Pattern Change to Bring Taste of September)