Ventus W636 Weather Station with outdoor sensor
If your weather station displays barometric pressure, temperature and relative humidity like the one pictured above, you can calculate the amount of water vapor in the air expressed either as grams of water vapor per kilogram of dry air (known as Mixing Ratio) or as grams of water vapor per kilogram of vapor-containing air (known as Specific Humidity). The two measures are very similar for cooler air; differences only become apparent for warmer air.
Formulas for calculating Mixing Ratio and Specific Humidity
In the formulas below, barometric pressure P is expressed in hectopascals (hPa), temperature T is expressed in degrees Celsius, relative humidity rh is expressed in %, and e is the Euler number 2.71828 [raised to the power of the contents of the square brackets]:
The decimal separator is shown as a full point (.) In developing these formulas, the following textbook was consulted: Atmospheric Thermodynamics by Grant W. Petty, Sundog Publishing, Madison Wisconsin. ISBN-10: 0-9729033-2-1
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P Mander, June 2020
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