Weather so cold boiling water turns to vapor on air contact / LJWorld.com

Weather so cold boiling water turns to vapor on air contact

By Kevin Anderson · February 3, 2011 · Comment on this

Reporter Brenna Hawley wanted to examine whether it was cold enough in Lawrence Thursday morning to throw boiling water into the air and get it to vaporize on contact with the frigid cold air.

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BigPrune 2 years, 3 months ago

Move a geiger counter around the edges of a microwave oven's door while the oven is on and see if you'd want to put your hands near the edges of its door again.

consumer1 2 years, 3 months ago

what was the purpose of this??? The majority of the water, hit the ground...unevaporated.

Jonathan Kealing 2 years, 3 months ago

Just an illustration of how cold or not cold it was. If we'd done it about an hour earlier, more likely would have vaporized.

sr80 2 years, 3 months ago

all i know is my snot was freezing on my face,but that was pretty cool!!!

cg22165 2 years, 3 months ago

I'm sorry, but this makes absolutely no sense.

The transition of water from a liquid to a gas requires a lot of energy. You can google words like

enthalpy phase state change latent heat

for a more complete description. Patently, the water has already absorbed as much as it is going from the microwave, and there is less energy available from the air when it is cold than when it is warm. You are seeing an impressive amount of condensation because the water that does transition to a gas state condenses more in cold air than it does in warm.