I realize it is splitting hairs to say that we are going to have a cooling trend over the holiday weekend when we are still going to get into the mid-90s, but when you are starting at 100, I guess it still qualifies. A ridge of high pressure sitting at the 4-corners area, which is drawing us some monsoonal flow out of Arizona, and that could result in a few thunderstorms in the afternoon, but at this time it looks like it probably won’t get any farther north than the Pine Nut Mountains east of the Carson Valley. A low pressure center off the coast of Washington should provide us here in the Reno area with enough westerly flow to keep us dry, if not completely cloud-free through the weekend.

A reader asked me the following: “I’ve got a question that has always bothered me. How come it always feels hotter if the humidity is higher? I would think that if there were more water in the air, it would feel cooler rather than hotter.” I understand why you might think that, but to understand the answer, you have to look at how we stay cool. More tomorrow.