Evaporative media pads for direct evaporative cooling systems and, in particular, evaporative media pads that have a reduced internal spacing to increase cooling capacity. In one embodiment, an evaporative media pad includes a plurality of sheets, each of the plurality of sheets including a plurality of flutes, each of the plurality of flutes having a flute height of at most 4.5 mm. In one embodiment, the flute height is at most 4 mm.