Does humidity cause a baseball to travel farther?

Answer 1

Humidity will cause a ball to travel shorter.

The Colorado Rockies, who play at Coors Field, used to have a ridiculous amount of home runs hit at their stadium, due to the high altitude and dry air. Recently they began keeping their baseballs in a humidor until game time, and a hit that used to go over the fence will now land in mid-center field.

Weight of the ball and also it's elastic collision properties probably are affected, too tired to answer the actual physics of it.

Answer 2

Sorry guys the ball will travel farther.

I'm going to assume your question is, "Given that a batter hits the same ball with exactly the same force and at exactly the same spot of the bat, and that the atmospheric temperature, pressure, and wind speed & direction are the same, would a ball travel farther on a day with higher or lower humidity?"

If you DID mean to include rain in your equation, then it will clearly cause the ball to travel less far, as the rain drops will push down on the ball as it travels.

If you instead meant atmospheric humidity, then you have to look at how water vapor changes the density of the air. Although high humidity makes the air seem "thicker," the fact is that water vapor molecules (H2O) are actully ligher than nitrogen (N2) or oxygen (O2) molecules. Thus, the more of them in the air (ie, the higher the humidity) -- given identical temperatures and atmospheric pressure -- the less dense is the air.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humidity#Humidity_and_air_density

Thus, the ball will travel farther, because the air it is travelling through is less dense.

Answer 3

Actually it does the opposite, the ball will travel a shorter distance due to the increased air density, which will cause a greater resistance, therefor slowing down the ball and making it fall sooner.

Answer 4

The baseball would travel slower if thrown with the exact same force, BUT I bet your muscles are more warmed up, so you are able to throw with more force and/or precision than you would on a dry day.

Answer 5

No shorter. Humidity is where the air is more "dense" with moisture. As the ball is traveling through more dense air, it will travel less far.

Answer 6

no. i would assume the denser air would weigh down the ball more than make it fly further. inside of the ball is rubber and cork so adding it to a humid environment would make it expand a bit and weigh it down with extra moisture and such. just a guess

Answer 7

Actually it slows it down, heavier air