When the sun is out after a rain, I can see what appears to be steam rising off a wooden bridge nearby. I'm pretty sure this is water turning into a gas.
However, I thought water had to reach 100 degrees C to be able to turn into a gas.
Is there an edge case, for small amounts of water perhaps, that allows it to evaporate?
Answer
Evaporation is a different process to boiling. The first is a surface effect that can happen at any temperature, while the latter is a bulk transformation that only happens when the conditions are correct.
Technically the water is not turning into a gas, but random movement of the surface molecules allows some of them enough energy to escape from the surface into the air. The rate at which they leave the surface depends on a number of factors - for instance the temperature of both air and water, the humidity of the air, and the size of the surface exposed. When the bridge is 'steaming': the wood is marginally warmer than the air (due to the sun shine), the air is very humid (it has just been raining) and the water is spread out to expose a very large surface area. In fact, since the air is cooler and almost saturated with water, the molecules of water are almost immediately condensing into micro-droplets in the air - which is why you can see them.
BTW - As water vapour is a gas, it is completely transparent. If you can see it then it is steam, which consists of tiny water droplets (basically water vapour that has condensed). Consider a kettle boiling - the white plume only occurs a short distance above the spout. Below that it is water vapour, above it has cooled into steam. Steam disappears after a while, as it has evaporated once again.
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