The Economic Research Service at the US Department of Agriculture reports that more than 94 million acres of corn have been planted in the US this year. With the exception of 2012 and 2013, that’s the greatest acreage of corn in US soil since World War I.
With more corn growing, the plants cause moisture to evaporate from the ground and get swept to places like Chicago, where the humidity soars due to the increased moisture levels in the air. The moisture is technically called evapotranspiration, defined by the American Meteorological Society as “the total amount of water transferred from the earth to the atmosphere.”
Twitter has a new name for the added moisture, though: corn sweat.
A little 'corny' fact about #CornSweat and the heat. #SwelteringHeat pic.twitter.com/7crBQNwDkA
— NWS Des Moines (@NWSDesMoines) July 21, 2016
And although I know most of the moisture in the air over Chicago this week came from the Gulf of Mexico, a not-so-small part of it originated in the cornfields of the Midwest. So stay cool out there in the dome of heat.
