Does moist air weigh more than dry air?

Question

What about places like colorado where its more dry compared to places like florida where its moist? How come its easier to hit a homerun in colorado than in florida?

Answer 1

A water molecule is one oxygen and 2 hydrogen atoms. Air is mostly nitrogen gas (2 nitrogen atoms bound together) and oxygen gas (2 oxygen atoms bound together). A nitrogen atom is about the same mass as an oxygen atom, so a molecule of nitrogen gas is about the same mass as an oxygen molecule. Therefore a water molecule is less massive than most all other air molecules.

Because a water molecule has less mass, air that has a lot of water molecules in it is less dense and weighs less than air that is very dry. All those people above are wrong.

Answer 2

No. Dry air weighs more (is more dense) than an equal volume of moist air. No need to copy/paste the explanation, please read this short article. http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/260/

The difference between Colorado and Florida is elevation. The mean elevation of Colorado is 6,800 feet above sea level. The mean elevation of Florida is 100 feet above sea level.
http://www.netstate.com/states/geography/co_geography.htm
http://www.netstate.com/states/geography/fl_geography.htm

Air at higher elevations will be less dense (and have less pressure accordingly) based on the hydrostatic relation.
http://amsglossary.allenpress.com/glossary/search?id=hydrostatic-equation1
http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/62/
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/HydrostaticLaw.html

I'm sure you realize that less dense, or thin, air will allow an object like a baseball to fly further through it due to less drag. It turns out that the effects of altitude have a bigger impact to the density of air than being moist or dry has on air.

One way to gauge the density of the air is to measure its pressure. At the Denver airport as I'm typing this, a barometer there is measuring an air pressure of 835.2 millibars (24.6" of mercury). Meanwhile in this same situation, down at sea level, the same barometer would be measuring about 1016.5 millibars (30.01" of mercury). This means that at this time, there's about 18% fewer air molecules (let's say in a cubic meter) up at Denver than what would be in the same volume down at sea level. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/bou/include/webpres.php?product=webpres.txt

Here's another discussion of baseballs flying farther at altitude.
http://www.ccmr.cornell.edu/education/ask/index.html?quid=428

Answer 3

the air in CO is more to it being less dense and thin, as there is less air to push down on it there than at lower areas.

its like when you swim, the deeper you are, the more pressure you feel.

Answer 4

Yes moist air weighs more. You must account for the weight of the water. A wet towel is heavier than a dry one isn't it?

Answer 5

Yes, I would say it does. Also, cold air weighs more than hot air.

Answer 6

Because it has more stuff in it.
The reason why it is easyer in colorado is because it is higher, so it has less air.

Answer 7

No the air ways the same because the moisture in the air is not air it's still water

Answer 8

Yes because it has the weight of water added to the weight of air. This is an oversimlifcation but you get the drift.

Answer 9

Yes, this is true, for the density of water is greater than air.

Answer 10

of course...the humidity represents water vapour that adds to the mass of a given volume of air.