Ambient temperature higher than surface temp??!

I would just like to add one point here, to help put your mind at ease. Most people run a normal body temperature of around 98-99 degrees F. Extremities in humans may run from 89 degrees on the surface, up to 95 or 96 degrees F. Most ball pythons run at a surface temperature of around 82-85 degrees F. Because of the temperature differences, frequently, snakes feel cool to the touch. With the ambient and surface temps you described, it would seem unlikely that your python was dangerously cold.

The humidity readings were probably your biggest problem, and thanks to the many excellent responses that is taken care of.

Best of Luck.

David

Thank you once again, I now have stable temperatures and humidity is slowly reducing, hopefully will have fallen a lot more by tomorrow but will keep you posted :D

Just an update, her ambient temp is now 83.3 with a 90 degree hotspot. All well and good? Humidity is down to mid 60's but hopefully that will come down to 60. Much more pleased with that, she's spending most of her time in the hot hide again.

Yes that is fine. The best hygrometers are the dial types, but they should always have a metal face card (never paper) and can be calibrated. (analogue hygrometers can be calibrated with a salt test cheap and easy, digitals need a special test kit as the salt air kills them) Thermometers are always an issue the cheap digital ones are ok ish. The good digital ones are very expensive, too much for most. I either use a good stat (like a herpstat, helix, ecozone, herpkeeper) to check cheap digitals against, (probe to probe) or buy quite a lot and use averages to weed out the ones that are off of the pack. It usually works and the odd ones often are quite wrong.

The wonderful world of accuracy. The other end of the process is to use the acceptable variation in measuring your temperatures. Most thermometers give a range of accuracy, up and down. This is the expected deviation (and represents how good the manufacturing is at least partially) for example a thermometer may read 80ºF but have an accuracy range of +/-2ºF. This means that the actual temp may be between 78-82ºF. +/- 2ºF is super common most cheap ones are this or worse. Some are +/-2ºC (close to 4ºF) and I have also seen some rated to 4ºC (around 7ºF up or down) I would suggest that anything having an accuracy farther than +/-2ºF not be used. It is worth checking the specs, often there are none I would avoid these altogether.

Some of the 'popular' units on this forum are +/-4ºF I would avoid them too. Check the specs.

Interesting you say that. I wonder what you class as cheap! My digital probe cost £25 it's an exoterra one, what do you think?