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The moisture on the inside of windows in a closed space comes from the water vapor (think steam that's too thinned out to see) in the air inside the closed space 'sticking' to (aka condensing on) the inside surface of the glass (doesn't matter if it's a car or a house or an airplane).

This moisture (aka water vapor) comes very often from people breathing inside the closed space (hence why our mouths get dry when talking a lot :), but can also come from water or water vapor in the surrounding environment that gets into the closed space (ie, if rain leaks in and soaks the carpet which then saturates the air with water vapor; or a leaky cabin heating system (HVAC) squirts water at some volume into the cabin whenever the system has pressure in it (like when it's on and providing heat); or the exhaust of a combustion engine (or a catalytic propane heater as used in camping) is venting into the closed space.

The warmer the air, and the higher the pressure, the more water it can hold.

However, if the temperature of the outside of the closed space is lower than that of the inside (or becomes so, as when night falls and the outside becomes cooler than the inside), the air touching the window gets colder, so can no longer hold as much moisture, so any excess deposits onto the window surface.

Unlike a house, a car typically only has a single sheet of glass between inside and outside, so condensation is typically more prevalent (think fogged up windows due to heavy breathing at night).

This same process, when happening away from a solid surface, is what causes rain/sleet/snow as warm/moist air rises in the sky/mixes with other colder air, the air with the water vapor in it gets colder, and assuming the pressure of the air doesn't decrease too much (thereby allowing the air to 'hold' more moisture ;-), the air loses it's abililty to hold anymore moisture, so the water vapor condenses into water particles (perhaps straight to ice if cold enough).

That's why it can rain/snow in a closed space full of very warm and humid air when a lot of cold in introduced into that space.

Hope this helps.

-ed

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15y ago

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