It's a pastime of mine going through old junk stores in search of "buried treasure." I'm not smart enough to make money off anything, but sometimes I come across some cool stuff.
This past weekend in Janesville, Wisconsin I noticed a hygrometer sitting on a shelf. Low and behold, it was $12! For most people, that's probably eleven bucks too much for a hygrometer, but to me it's worth its weight in gold.
This morning on Good Morning Quad Cities, I showed how a hygrometer works! Before I go further, I probably should tell you how a hygrometer works. A hygrometer measures the relative humidity. In this hygrometer, there is a dry thermometer on the left side and a wet thermometer on the right. On the left, the dry bulb temperature. On the right, the wet bulb temperature. Using the scale in the middle of the thermometers, you can take the difference between the two thermometers and calculate the relative humidity.
If you're wondering, the News 8 studio has a relative humidity of 59%. And if you watch the video, it gets a little messy at the end. It could be the first localized flash flood warning just for the newsdesk.
-Meteorologist Eric Sorensen