The theoretical study of the counter-flow dew point evaporative cooler is currently limited to the influence of different operating conditions and geometric parameters. Therefore, this paper presents an in-depth investigation on the governing factors of the dew point evaporative cooling process. A 2-D mathematical model has been developed based on the momentum, continuity, energy and species balance equations. The model was able to achieve good agreement with a maximum discrepancy of +/- 8.0% in predicting the transient and steady-state performance of the counter-flow dew point evaporative cooler. A new dimensionless model was produced from the general model via scaling analysis. The relevant dimensionless groups controlling the operating conditions, geometric parameters and supply air conditions were derived. We further discussed the relative importance of the physical mechanisms involved in the heat and mass transfer process. In addition, a dimensional analysis was carried out to investigate the quantitative expressions of the dimensionless time constant and product air temperature. The key findings that emerged from this study are: (1) the dominant dimensionless groups for the evaporative cooling process are Re, r,H/L,delta/L, T-o(*) and pi; and (2) the correlations for the dimensionless time constant and product air temperature have been developed and validated with data to demonstrate good accuracy.