The "steam" cloud

October 24, 2006 9:18 AM

Science question. Why is it that when you kill the heat to a pot of boiling water, it suddenly emits lots of condensation clouds? Shouldn't it be making those "steam" clouds while it boils?
posted by zek to science & nature (3 comments total)

Well, on a gas stove at least, there's a lot of hot air that's surrounding the pot that carries the hot vapour away before it condenses. So when you kill the heat, the water is still hot, but you don't have that convection current drawing the vapour away and longer, thus it just sits there and condenses near the pot.

There's usually an inverse correlation between answer promptness and answer correctness though, so I await more detailed explanations.
posted by GuyZero at 9:30 AM on October 24, 2006

Previously.
posted by expialidocious at 9:52 AM on October 24, 2006

Interesting... I missed the previous post. I'm satisfied with that.
posted by zek at 10:10 AM on October 24, 2006