Do you like home runs? You must love this time of year and no, it’s not because of the Home Run Derby during the all star break.
Three things can influence a ball’s trajectory once it is struck aside from the wind speed and direction. Temperature, pressure, and humidity all in a sense control how dense the air is, lower density means less resistance and a longer ball flight. When the conditions are right this can turn a fly ball into a home run, send a perfect golf shot flying into the sand trap behind the green, and even the need for a longer runway so a plane can takeoff or land.
The hotter it gets the “lighter” the air gets. Think of warm air rising and cold air sinking. Lighter air is less dense and will cause less resistance. Air pressure is related to temperature but can also drop due to a storm approaching. The lower the pressure the longer a ball will fly so look for a drop in pressure to add those few extra yards, just make sure the drop is not due to a storm right overhead. The more humid the air is then the lighter the air is. Plain old breathing air is made up mostly of nitrogen and oxygen. Replace some of that with water vapor, which is lighter, and you have then made the air less dense.
So a hot and humid day with lower air pressure can add feet or even yards to that fly ball or golf shot. May not seem like much but when your talking about a “game of inches”, the weather could be the difference between winning or losing.
