Why is it colder when it is sunny compared to raining during the WINTER?

Question

My Chemistry teacher told me once. Something to do with H2O in the air when it rains.. suppose to make it warmer.. but i forgot the whole explanation.
Does anyone know?

Answer 1

Clouds makes the air hotter. When is sunny the presence of clouds is gone therefore is colder.

Answer 2

The cloud cover reduces the amount of infra red which escapes back out into space, like a blanket keeps you warmer than a sheet. But there is a second effect, even larger, water vapor condensing into water also gives up the "latent heat of vaporization" which is the energy it took somewhere else to turn liquid water into vapor, most likely supplied by the sun evaporating water from a lake or some such. These effects are offset a bit by the high and low pressure areas. The atmosphere tends to warm a bit as a high pressure area moves in, and cool a bit as air pressure lowers. Even though these effects work at odds to each other, the blanket effect plus the latent heat are a magnitude larger then the pressure effect.

Answer 3

Clouds are opaque to infrared light. When it's cloudy the infrared light that would normally escape into space gets reflected back to earth and everything stays warmer. It's called the greenhouse effect.

Answer 4

Humidity/water in the air contains latent heat...that's why the coldest part of the day is just after sunrise when the humidity/dew is burnt off. Also when it's sunny/cloudless the warm air escapes, when it is cloudy it traps the warm air.

Answer 5

Hey, I'm from Seattle and its colder when it rains. Except in the winter when its icy rain and the sun pokes thru at 4pm for one lonely hour to irk you.

Answer 6

clouds keep warm air from leaving, they act like a blanket.

Answer 7

It has to do with cloud cover. clouds hold in the heat from the earth.