Thank you for this terrific article. Like one other commenter, I live in the Seattle area, in fact north of there where it's typically quite a bit colder if not wetter from November into March. And like that other commenter, more or less every bread dough I prepare in those months turns out substantially wetter and tackier than recipes indicate it should be. My wife and I rarely run the central heat, except in the evening, so the house is usually on the chilly side. I've been experimenting with reducing the water in bread recipes across the board by about ten percent in the fall and winter. It's early days in the experiment but it seems to be working. By contrast, humidity isn't much of an issue hereabouts in summer, and most of my bread doughs seem just right with the full amount of water. Baking is great fun! It's also perplexing some of the time.

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