andrel's Journal: Watching clothes dry

I did a load of laundry this morning and then spent a few enjoyable minutes watching my pants dry. (I've never claimed not to be easily amused.) It is chilly outside, so the steam coming off the pants was easily visible. Although not planar, the flow appeared to be confined to a 2D manifold. This sheet seemed to move about with the wind. Within manifold flow was turbulent. The show stopped abruptly, either due to outdoor temperature rising or pant temperature falling. I felt the pants, they were still wet. They are black and were hanging in direct sun (c. 1 kW/m^2 according to the web-connected radiometer a mile away, note that doesn't include the cos(theta) term), so there was solar temperature forcing.

CFD readers are warned: next time I see you I'm asking for help calculating the Reynolds number. The obvious length scale candidates are the width of the pants across the drying rack and the length hanging down.