WNKY NEWS 40 Weather Reports: What is ‘Corn Sweat’?

How It Can Affect Our Weather

BOWLING GREEN, KY.- The next time you break a sweat you might want to say ‘Aw Shucks!’ Did you know that Corn can affect our weather? It might sound corny, but ‘corn sweat’ or the scientific term, evapotranspiration can cause higher humidity levels. That’s dependent on other factors such as the sun angle and the amount of soil moisture. 

“Corn sweat is not a new term. This is something that happens a lot  over sections of the Midwest, the central Midwest, that being the Corn Belt and into portions of the Great Plains, where we see these late season heatwaves like we’re dealing with right now.” Said Shane Holinde, Outreach Manager for Kentucky Mesonet and Kentucky Climate center. 

What is ‘Corn Sweat’? It’s a process of the transfer of water from the ground up, and moisture gets released from the leaves. This can locally increase the dewpoint temperature, which measures the amount of moisture in the air.

 “As the dewpoint increases the muggier it feels, as a result, the actual temperature feels hotter than it really is.” Said Holinde. 

Currently due to lack of rainfall there’s low soil moisture in Kentucky. Shane mentioned that since Corn here has already matured, with it’s ears turned brown, there isn’t much ‘corn sweat’ going on here compared to areas across the Midwest and the plains.

Well there you have it! Corn can be a contributing factor to our humidity.