The Weird Reason Indiana is One of America’s Most Humid States

Indiana is known as one of America's most humid states, and one leading culprit behind the humidity might be sweating just as much as we do during the summer.

When you live here in Indiana, especially southern Indiana, you know that it's not the heat during the summer that will get you. It's the humidity. How many times have you heard someone say that? A lot, right?

According to a recent breakdown by WorldAtlas.com, warm, moisture-rich air flowing up from the Gulf of Mexico still plays a major role in Midwest humidity. However, that's not the only reason why we have muggy and humid summers here in Indiana. Here in Indiana, you can blame that humidity on all of that corn we grow. The Indiana cornfields lead to a weirdly fascinating phenomenon meteorologists casually call “corn sweat.”

What the Heck is Corn Sweat?

As you know, Indiana is known for all of the corn that we grow throughout the state. Drive down any rural road in Indiana, and there's a good chance a cornfield will surround you. When it gets hot in the summer, corn has to cool down like everything else, so it releases moisture into the air through a process called evapotranspiration. Think of it as the plant version of breathing, except instead of exhaling carbon dioxide, corn releases water vapor. This process can add to the humidity we feel outside.

Just one acre of corn can release 3,000 to 4,000 gallons of moisture in a day, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Now multiply that by the millions of acres of corn planted across Indiana and the Midwest, and you'll understand why that humidity we feel throughout the summer is so brutal.

Oh, and if you want to put the corn sweat moisture into perspective of just how much it affects the humidity, it can boost humidity levels by as much as 30 to 40 percent on hot days. Which is why an already hot 90-degree afternoon in Indiana can feel like you’re living inside a sauna.

So remember, as the days get hotter and the humidity gets worse, we have corn sweat to blame!