Meteorologist calls Southern California humidity 'genuinely tropical' Play

L.A. was a hot mess Tuesday, and it's going to be even worse Wednesday. Experts tell us this is some of the worst humidity that they have ever measured in Southern California. It was steamy Tuesday in Santa Monica. We actually saw steam coming up off the pavement as the sun broke through.

UC meteorologist Daniel Swain says the dew point, which is the actual measurement that computes heat and humidity, is off the charts high.

"Dew point is an apples-to-apples comparator of humidity from place to place and across temperatures. If it is high, it's high no matter where you are. It feels the same in Florida that it does in California, and right now that dew point is genuinely tropical."

The dew points in Malibu Wednesday, once the sun warms us up, will be higher than that. Again, Daniel Swain:

"That is extremely humid by anyone's definition. This isn't just, oh, it never gets humid in Southern California, we aren't acclimated. This is an absolute humidity that is very high, and in some cases it is right up there at the ceiling of the humidity that we've really ever seen in this part of the world at any time of year."