Thermodynamic properties of the troposphere, particularly water vapor content and temperature, change in response to physical mechanisms, including frictional drag, evaporation, transpiration, heat transfer, pollutant emission and flow modification due to terrain. The planetary boundary layer (PBL) is characterized by a greater rate of change in the thermodynamic state of the atmosphere than at higher altitudes in the troposphere. Measurement of these changes, such as large horizontal gradients in water vapor and vertical profiles, provides very important data for improved weather prediction. Sensitivity studies for severe storm prediction indicate that a lack of accurate observations of water vapor densities throughout the lower troposphere limits the forecasting of severe storms. Therefore, measurements of water vapor density using microwave radiometers may help to improve accuracy of severe weather prediction. The HUMidity EXperiment 2011 (HUMEX11) was conducted to validate remote sensing of tropospheric humidity using ground-based scanning Compact Microwave Radiometers for Humidity profiling (CMR-H). Two microwave radiometers were scanned to sample an atmospheric volume at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains (SGP) Climate Research Facility. Scientific objectives of HUMEX11 were to measure water vapor profiles in the lower troposphere with high vertical and temporal resolution and to track rapid variations in water vapor in the lowest 3 km of the troposphere. The principal reason for conducting the campaign at the SGP Climate Research Facility was the ability to compare the water vapor profile results with other measurements like ARM microwave radiometers and Raman lidar. The Raman lidar water vapor profiles were used as truth for comparison with the retrieved profiles. The study also focuses on optimizing the size of the background data set to minimize retrieval error as well as varying the vertical resolution to increase sensitivity to gradients in the water vapor profile. Water vapor profiles were retrieved at various vertical resolutions ranging from 0.1 to 0.5 km. The background data set for the retrieval consisted of radiosondes launched from the DOE ARM SGP site four times daily during the experiment. The accuracy and error statistics of the retrieved profiles is compared for different background data set sizes and different vertical resolutions.