Be fair. Anecdotes are in fact data, but wrapped in little fun size packages.

Anecdata! Now with no High Fructose Corn Syrup! Or gluten!

——————————

By the way, I’m aware that even for me, this post is not exactly written in the highest-toned language and all I can say to that is: Sit on it, jerkwad. But first, get me a wet washcloth. My forehead is sheening. At 1 AM.

We’ll have an airconditioner led economic recovery! We’d have to be mad to stop Climate Change now!

Since Tucson is currently not at war, Obama has brought forth World Peace.

I can’t believe you pansy-waisted Northwesterners.  80 and you whine?  What’s the humidity level?

Come out to the mid-Atlantic.  Enjoy getting slapped with a wet blanket upon stepping outside.  Enjoy the feeling of your sweat running down your every limb and into your underpants because it’s 95 degrees out and 98 percent humidity, yet your body stupidly continues to sweat uselessly.

The people who I always hear around me on a low-humidity, 85-degree day saying, “If this is global warming, I want to thank Al Gore!” are the same assholes who go to that museum out in Kansas where they put the saddle on the dinosaur bones and think it’s real science.

Where I’m at, the same people who chortle “What global warming?” every time it snows in the dead of winter, are the same people who never seem to notice that we’re having more 100+ degree days in the summer.

Global warming manifests itself in more extreme weather, not necessarily warmer weather.

Scott—you took the words right out of my mouth. I believe I even used “chortle.”

But this is partly because we’ve adopted the phrase “global warming” instead of “climate destabilization.” The northeast is now in its second summer of near-daily torrential rains. It’s been cooler than it could be, yes (Monday it got to something like 84 and humid and I thought I was going to die—I’ve become so acclimated to the cool summers), but we literally had something like 4-5 days in the month of June where we didn’t have rain. We’re starting to have an early fall in JULY because the trees haven’t gotten enough sun and it’s been so cool.

It’s not like I want things to be 96F and 99% humidity—that’s why I left Philly. But regions expect a certain level of climate behavior, and things are definitely out of whack. I feel like it’s Monsoon Season.

speedbudget, I think you might mean the museum in KY, but I wouldn’t doubt that there is some such museum in KS either.  PZ Myers is going there with a large group from SSA soon.

Yeah, I heard about the temps in Seattle and Portland lately and that is all kinds of uncomfortable. 

That the phrase ‘global warming’ is used to describe the phenom is unfortunate, since stupid people think they know what that means.  ‘Global climate change’ would be better, but it’s too late now. 

I live in MN where the weather has been on the cool side this summer, but very dry.  Most summers would be hot and humid with frequent thunderstorms.  Granted, I have enjoyed having fewer mosquitoes while camping.

Don’t they understand that the melting ice caps infuse the oceans with extremely cold water—for a while—and that this totally changes weather patterns, particularly in regions where warmer water previously dictated the climate?  And that this is why it’s more accurately referred to as climate CHANGE?  Bleargh, it’s like arguing with people who still think the world is flat.

Oh, and here in Florida, we have a word for 80 degrees: chilly.

I live in the Armpit of Southern California — The “Inland Empire”.  The current temp is 67 degrees right now, with 87% humidity.  This is a significantly cooler overnight low than it’s been for a while.

The forecast high is 95 degrees.  This too is 5-8 degrees cooler than it’s been for the last couple weeks.  Oh goodie!

We have yet to have some of those 110 degree Santa Ana days, where the humidity is indeed lower, in fact, so low your skin is turning to leather, your eyes hurt, and it’s so fuckin’ hot doing anything is a pain.  And with the Santa Anas come the fires!

So, Mr. Portland, don’t expect too much sympathy from down here where it’s actually hot…

(Of course, those who live in Phoenix look down on all of us when it comes to tolerating great heat.  Those people are nuts…)

>Oh, and here in Florida, we have a word for 80 degrees: chilly.

What word does Florida have for 106 degrees in the shade? That is what the thermometer read in my backyard 2 days in a row now.  This was in Olympia, WA.

Yeah well, it’s a fucking rain forest in Massachusetts this summer.

rea, “Global Warming” does necessitate some actual warming, and “extreme weather” has always been with us.  One is measurable, while the other requires some definitions, perspective, and is easily hyped.

I prefer the term “Climate Change” since that’s what’s happening.  Some areas may get a lot cooler if oceans rise, some will get wetter, some dryer, some warmer, and there are feedback loops on the feedback loops for what the various changes will bring.  For just one example, the loss of iceshelves and a rise in water changes the salt content and temperature and speed of the Gulf Stream.  Without the Gulf Stream, Europe, which is generally as far North as Canada (Rome and Chicago are equally North,) would likely be like Canada in climate.  But thanks to warm air coming from the Atlantic, it’s pretty hospitable for a lot of the year.  What if that changes a lot?  Just something to consider.

As for “extreme weather”, those tornados and droughts and heavy rains and landslides and such are freak things while the bigger story is a gradual shift in the average highs and lows and amounts of precipitation.  The boring story is the more important one, while the flashy stuff is still too sketchy to base many theories upon.

The biggest problem is that so many people don’t understand the meanings of the words “climate” and “weather”, nor do they know they difference between the two.  Nearly all climate change deniers have no idea what those words mean.

For decades I have read how global warming can lead to cooler weather.

The big deal is that, even if the temperature changes by just 1 degree C, weather patterns can shift.  If the jet stream or the thermo-haline circulator get fucked up, we might not be able to grow food.

As the polar ice melts, there’s more water in the atmosphere, and more rain.  Last year, Britain had the Great Flood of June, followed by the Great Flood of July.

Chicago hasn’t had summer.  It’s actually been really pleasant, since it’s never broken 90 degrees, but it’s NOT SUMMER.  My window boxes SUCK b/c it was in the 60s and grey through all of June (wettest on record).  The geraniums

It’s true our records aren’t very long, geologically speaking, but we can see glaciers that are millenia old melting, and the hottest years are not randomly distributed throghout the record, but are grouped all in the last decade.  We can measure the gases from polar cores and compare it to the stuff out there right now, and see the difference.

The jet stream is the most important weather factor in the US.  It’s why Chicago is cold while the rest of the country is hot and when Chicago is usually hot (nearly 800 people died here in a heat wave once).  The jet stream has hung onto a winter pattern over Chicago this year, and there’s no God up there who’s going to smack it around and tell it to behave and get back where it belongs.

The Earth is not in danger.  The Earth is going to do what it does.  WE’RE the ones who need to learn how it works and how to make it work for us.  If we fuck the atmosphere to the point that the America’s breadbasket is too hot and dry to grow enough grain…well, that’s one way to stop too many humans from making too much carbon.

My geraniums suck.  They haven’t grown much more from when they were planted and currently have no flowers on them at all.  That’s what I meant to say.

As for Florida and heat?  FUCK.

A few years ago my husband had a business meeting in Orlando and decided he’d take the whole family down and hit Disney.  Hotels were covered by the trip, and we could use miles for my ticket and just pay for one kid’s fare.  Cheap vacation!  Why wasn’t I excited?

Because the meeting was set for August.

I have relatives live in Jacksonville.  I’ve been to Florida in the summer.  It is hellish.  The AIR is hot.

This is why I don’t live in Florida.  Chicago tries to pretend it’s Flordia for a few days a year, and I actually look forward to being miserable b/c that makes the 9 months of winter easier to take—you can always put on more clothes or blankets, once you’re naked, that’s it.  I’m not getting it this year.

And b/c we haven’t had a hot summer, I’m not sure how warm Lake Michigan has gotten.  The lake mitigates our winters, so if it’s cold already, winter will come sooner.

Caren Sun-blocking (etc.):  yes indeed.  We don’t often go into the triple digits—not in the shade, anyway—but Florida’s humidity is so freakishly high, the so-called “feels like” temperatures will knock you out if you’re not used to them.  I’ve been to Tucson, Arizona in August and walked around in 109-degree weather, but the drier air makes it bearable.  Here, the air itself feels like you’re stepping into a steam room when you go outdoors.  Cars parked on asphalt turn into ovens-on-wheels.  This has always been the case here, though; the main difference with this summer is that the heavy rains started up in late May, whereas they normally don’t pour in earnest until hurricane season kicks in (late August).  Lakes and rivers are brimming, and many wells have hit the artesian level.  If we do get a bad tropical storm or, God forbid, a hurricane this year, the tidal surge floods are sure to wreak havoc, especially if the storm strikes during a full-moon high tide.  Yikes.  Shades of things to come, I’m afraid.

Perhaps Auguste was unclear. It was 80 at midnight. At 4PM on Tuesday, it was 108 in Medford. I grew up spending my summers in Florida, and when it’s normally 80, 108 feels much, much worse. I live in the Pacific Northwest partly because I hate weather extremes. Oops.

<i>I have relatives live in Jacksonville.  I’ve been to Florida in the summer.  It is hellish.  The AIR is hot. </ i>

Eh, I lived in South Florida most of my life. The temperature rarely gets above 90 and you always can count on rainshowers in the afternoon—that is, unless developers have their way and the Everglades are destroyed. The humidity is a killer. you almost need a snorkel and flippers to wade through the air.

What I hated about SFla summers was they lasted from May to Oct. I think they’re lasting even longer now, dragging on from April to November. thank you climate change!

To be fair to Auguste, he was pointing out it was 80 degrees at midnight. probably triple digits during the day.

Then again, it never gets below 80 at night in Florida summer. Another reason the Holy Disco Ball never wanted humans to live there.

Av0gadro , me too.  When I moved to Seattle from the South, someone called it the Great Pacific NorthWET, and that’s why I love it.  This summer, though…. NPR just announced that “it will be cooler today, in the mid 90s”.  Ugh.

50 years ago it used to snow in Tokyo.  Quite a bit.  Now ... we’re lucky if we see a few flakes once a year. 

I don’t know if that’s global warming or what, but it indicates to me that ... it’s warmer now.  Even though right this moment it’s 70ish and raining on a day when it should be 90 and ... not raining until September or something.  I’m not really complaining, although I know it’s unusual.  Just, I prefer it when it’s not 90 degrees at night.

Global warming manifests itself in more extreme weather, not necessarily warmer weather.

I’m in Vancouver BC, & I just came back from visiting w/ family in southern Ontario.  Waterloo region has just set a new record for the coolest July EVER, & the BC Lower Mainland is a blast furnace.  That’s pretty godamn extreme.

I can’t fucking sleep for more that 4 hours at a stretch because of the heat, my skin is giving me that itchy-sweaty-prickly feeling all over & if I have to listen to some idiot going on about how Global Warming induced Climate Change is a myth, & swear I won’t be help responsible for my actions.

It was 107 during the day yesterday, yes. I see now that I forgot to write that. Probably because my cerebro-spinal fluid was boiling.

That’s “held”.  Duh.

Right now, our temperatures are in the mid-80s during the day.  In the San Fernando Valley.  It’s overcast this morning (aka the June Gloom, which is slowly becoming the July and August Gloom instead).

Send some of it over to Worcester, Mass. We’re a black pit of slightly-worse-weather-than-whatever-the-rest-of-Mass-is-going-through, and I’ve been sick all summer from having to walk to work.

I favor “climate change” since the term “global warming” just makes me jealous of the globe, what with living in Worcester and all which I’m starting to think is an alternate dimension. We’ve had some excellent examples of “season creep” since I’ve moved here, though.

We’ve had record temperatures in the San Joaquin Valley in CA for a few weeks, the temps have been up to 107.

I went out for a couple of hours in the midday sun with only an 8 oz bottle of water for what I call a walkabout, but then I grew up here and am somewhat of a desert rat, Homo dehydratus rattus.

This is for you, MikeEss:

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.

I’ll never forgive Joan Didion,  the madwoman of Sacramento, for using an incomplete version of this quote to make a point in one of her screeds.

I live in Denver and it feels like Seattle I tcan’t remember a summer in Colorado with this much rain.  The climate is definitely changing.

In the 70s, Boise had nights during the winter in the -teens and 20s and summer days in the 110-120s.  Five years ago, they were selling retirement homes with a pitch of the nice moderate climate.  My father-in-law stopped complaining about the extremes, until recently.

MA, raining damn near every day this summer.  Ditto all the way up Maine and down past NYC.  I played softball Monday night in that great weather someone else already mentioned.  It was in the mid to upper 80s with 80-90 humidity throughout the state, after a sudden change like a switch from cold and raining for all of June and the start of July. 

Seriously not normal.  I’m amazed everyone isn’t sick and my entire garden is dead.

A few weeks ago in Ohio we actually had a day that was 50 degrees. (In July? I’m not sure that’s supposed to happen…)

Luckily the heat hasn’t been too bad in the summer here, but what’s really bothering me is the early heat in winter. During February we had a few 60 degree days in a row which was enough to melt the snow and convince some plants to open their buds. The next day? An ice storm.

Because of that I have a dead peach tree and a dead hydrangea. *shakes fist*

Dark Avenger, that Raymond Chandler quote proves to me that he was a very keen observer of the human race, at least in SoCal…

Pardon me while I laugh at the west-siders (ie, west of the Cascades). You realize we do this heat thing every year in Yakima?

No, but seriously even we don’t normally stay above 100 for weeks at a time. I’m barricading myself in the house and calling Ceiling Cat’s blessing onto my heat pump.

I live in northern MN (hi gravitybear) and it’s been unseasonably cool and dry up here, too.  Our winters have been warmer for the last 10 years or so.  Our USDA climate zone has actually shifted from 3 to 4.  If this trend continues, Duluth may actually be habitable in about 10 more years.

Yessir, it’s a tad warm here. I work out in Forest Grove where it was 100 and freakin 6 degrees yesterday. It’s usually 5-10 degrees cooler than in Portland, so I’m kind of surprised to find out that the city hadn’t melted in the night.

Still, beets the ever loving tar out of summer in Georgia, where this is the normal temp starting in March and ending sometime in December. I’m exaggerating only slightly.

Just to engage in a little anecdata of my own, another take-home from my story about the 11 pallets of AC units disappearing from Lowe’s should be to point out what a relatively low percentage of households in PDX actually have air conditioning. I have never lived in a house with A/C except for two months in Washington DC. If it were as ubiquitous here as in the east, there’d be much less to complain about.

I just tracked down some numbers: 35% of homes have central air, and another 30% use window units. That leaves 30% of households in the city with no air conditioning of any kind. (Mine is one.) That’s versus 84% with central air in the Washington DC area. So enough of the “PNWers are weak” talk, eh?

Y’know, one of the things we up here in the Great Northwest really like is the general temperateness of the weather.  You’re right, it doesn’t get too awfully hot, and it doesn’t get too awfully cold, but that doesn’t make us sissies, it makes us sensible people who know how to really enjoy life. 

Many of us wonder why they call those other places the “temperate zone”.  Ain’t nothin “temperate” about hurricanes, summer temperatures (in normal years) of 110F, snow every year deep enough to require plowing.  And don’t get me started about places where it’s that deep and they don’t even plow!

Yup, we’ll enjoy life here in the true temperate zone, and you can all suffer to your hearts’ content.  Except, this year, it’s just not quite temperate enough.  Air conditioners?  Why would we need air conditioners?  It only gets over 100 for a couple of weeks a year. Usually.

We pastafarianss know that correlation is causation for Xtians :p

I actually know some people whose marriage broke up because of weather.  J. decided he wanted to live closer to his family in Illinois so he talked his wife M. (a Southern California native) into moving there last October because, hey, the winters had been mild for the past few years, so how bad could it be?

You guessed it—they had the worst winter in a decade and she just couldn’t face having to deal with it again and ended up going back to California.  It’s one thing to deal with a severe downstate winter when you’ve lived there all your life.  It’s another when you’ve just moved there from sunny California, you’re trapped in your house by the weather, and you have no job, no friends, and the only people you know are your in-laws.

If J. was smart, he would have waited to move until spring so they could have a nice Illinois spring, summer and fall before having to face that nasty winter, but you can’t reason with someone in the middle of his midlife crisis.

One hundred and seven in Seattle yesterday.  ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN.

If I wanted to live like this, I’d have stayed in CA.  Which I didn’t.  I hated San Jose’s climate (Half Moon Bay was nice).

we’re all wusses out here in Seattle—it’s really not that hot. The trouble is that we don’t have air conditioning/ceiling fans/cross ventilation/other intelligent designs for heat, cause we never have to deal with it. Also, NBarnes, 107 degrees doesn’t sound right—where did you hear that? I never saw my thermometer go above 102.  Texas was much hotter, but there was more of a lake culture in Austin and every damned thing was air conditioned.
That said, I love how hot it is; it’s hardly ever warm enough to swim in Lake Washington, and yesterday it was about the only bearable and pleasant thing to do.  Also, like other commenters said, I like having seasons.  And a week of hot weather is at least a nod towards summer, even if it’s not a full fledged season. I also like snowstorms, as long as they dont’ last for four months.

Yeah, I’m going to scream at the next person who tells me that us Northwesterners need to stop complaining.  When we are experiencing the highest temperatures in this area not of the year, not of the decade, but since they started recording weather we have a goddamn right to complain. 

Besides which, we’re completely unprepared to deal with it.  I know nobody with air conditioning in their house, most don’t have basements, and I’ve talked to a number of people who have been getting temperatures inside their homes of above 90 or even 100 degrees.  AC units and even fans are virtually impossible to obtain.  I actually have a friend from California who just moved here and is freaking out because there’s no way to deal with this kind of heat.  This is not comparable to a similar hot spell in a warmer region.

Fortunately we had a freakishly snowy winter, so we’re not on water restriction yet!  See - the extreme weather balances itself out!

That leaves 30% of households in the city with no air conditioning of any kind. (Mine is one.) That’s versus 84% with central air in the Washington DC area. So enough of the “PNWers are weak” talk, eh?

Right, it’s easy to be all John Wayne about the heat when you’re luxuriating in air-conditioned comfort, enjoying a mint-garnished organic lemonade. Out here we have to take every miserable degree of it square in the face.

But, fuck, who am I kidding- we are weak people. We’re ill-adapted to the things the rest of the country has to deal with on a daily basis: months of suffocating heat and humidity, drifts of weeks-old, shit-colored snow drifts in winter, vile biting insects of every description, surprise tornados, hurricanes, flash-floods, hurricanes, ball-lightning and lyme disease. I’m pretty much ready to straight-up murder someone after 5 minutes of any of the above.

It’s been weirder than normal for central Illinois this year - instead of constant subtropical head we’ve had alternating spikes of that mixed with weeks of torrential rain.

I’m in Toronto, and like most of Ontario, things have been relatively cool and often rainy. I suspect I’ll have tasteless tomatoes again this year, but otherwise, I’ve been pretty happy with this change. I know that it’s potentially a sign of serious climate instability, but it’s great biking weather and I haven’t had to turn on the central a/c once all this month.

My sister just sent me this email. Forgive the forwarding, but maybe those of us in the northeast will feel united for just a moment.

A man died one day and found himself waiting in the long line of judgment.  As he stood there, he noticed that some people were allowed to march right through the pearly gates into Heaven.  Others were led over to Satan, who threw them into the burning pit.  But every so often, instead of hurling a poor soul into the fire, Satan would toss them off to one side into a small pile.

After watching Satan do this several times, the man’s curiosity got the best of him, so he strolled over and asked Satan what he was doing. “Excuse me, Mr.  Prince of Darkness,” he said. “I’m waiting in line for judgment, but I couldn’t help wondering, why are you tossing those people aside instead of flinging them into the Fires of Hell with the others?” 

“Ah, those,” Satan said with a groan.  “They’re all from Ontario. They’re still too wet to burn.”

TB I have to agree with you, after the ex being stationed in Ohio for 7 years (had kid number two during the blizzard of 95/96 and I still have nightmares about the June bugs) then being sent to North Dakota (it’s a mild winter! Only -40 with the wind chill! Oh, and those aren’t sparrows they’re mosquitoes) I’ll cope with our heat wave. I might bitch the entire time, but I wouldn’t trade it for any of that other… stuff.

Yeah, I’m going to scream at the next person who tells me that us Northwesterners need to stop complaining.  ...  Besides which, we’re completely unprepared to deal with it.
Jennifer S.

Nonsense.  Mayon Nickles has the snow plows out and the roads are already sanded.

But, yes.  I moved my den to the front room that actaully has air circulation.  The heat was creeping in even in my basement unit.

*&$!^*** Mayor is spelled with an “R”

I work out in Forest Grove where it was 100 and freakin 6 degrees yesterday. It’s usually 5-10 degrees cooler than in Portland, so I’m kind of surprised to find out that the city hadn’t melted in the night.

Still, beets the ever loving tar out of summer in Georgia, where this is the normal temp starting in March and ending sometime in December. I’m exaggerating only slightly.

Yeah, except that instead of the usual drought-ridden 95-105 temps in July in Georgia, this summer we’ve got a constant downpour and highs in the mid-80s—October weather, really.  I want to enjoy it, but it’s freaking me out too much.

I am going to use the entire right blogosphere and the Faux Spews viewership as proof of human devolution and that we are evolving to be more stupid.

Jennifer S.—Absolutely.

We northerners will scoff at school being closed in Georgia after a quarter inch of snowfall overnight, but we take things like snowplows, rocksalt, a shovel in every home, and plenty of experience driving on slippery roads for granted.

I’m guessing that the number of homes in the south that don’t have A/C is pretty tiny (and certainly limited to the poorest of the population). 

Americans aren’t as hardy as we pretend we are.

I ran home twice yesterday to check on my cat and make sure she hadn’t collapsed from heat exhaustion.  (Fortunately, I figured out a solution to keep her cool so I can stay in my air-conditioned office today.)  Fuck this weather.

MikeEss, I read Chandlers’ novels when I was a teenager, and I have to go along Ross McDonald:

Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence

Your heat ate my favorite web forum.  They had to replace some hardware that failed due to it.

Yesterday was hellish.
And now today- being (perhaps) slightly cooler has the Blue gotdamned Angels roaring over downtown Seattle.
BALLS.
BALLS I SAY!

Summer here has been cooler than normal, but then again this happens every few years.

Of course, I live in Nebraska, where our unofficial state motto is “If you don’t like the weather, wait 15 minutes.” Sometimes, it seems like forecasting our weather is like meteorological pin the tail on the donkey.

So, i have to chuckle at everyone griping about heat, humidity, cold, rain, etc. because we go through it all, from 90’s to 100’s in the summer, to 0 and below in the winter. Hey, i just got an idea: set up a “global climate change” survival camp here; it’ll prepare you for anything!

those aren’t sparrows they’re mosquitoes

During my summers in junior high and high school I did these drum corps tours around the country, and saw shit that would turn you white. Mosquitoes descending like a cloud of nerve gas at dusk (Wisconsin), tornado shelters where terrified residents cower while above ground everything they own is vaporized (Oklahoma), rows of cars pounded into wreckage from the oversized hail (Kansas), unbearable suffocating humidity (Kansas), rest stop mens’ rooms with giant, crudely-gnawed glory holes and the most hair-raising obscenity my young mind had yet encountered (Kansas, 1984), fuckin’ 300 miles of corn (Kansas), roaches the size of eagles (everywhere), mountain folk (West Virginia). After that I swore I would never live more than 75 miles from the Pacific.

It’s currently 80 degrees at midnight. And that’s significantly cooler than the last two nights.

Hell, in southern Virginia that’s cool for July!

Oh, and it’s been a very cool summer here. I don’t remember a July in recent memory that was this cool (or should I say one that isn’t like the depths of hell?) Proves absolutely, positively, nothing about climate, since I’m talking about weather, though.

During the one summer I spent out of the PNW (in Philly) it got up above 100 degrees a couple times. I had never been in weather that hot before. “So long, east-coast suckers!” I thought when I moved to Portland a few months ago, “it never breaks 90 here!”

...God DAMMIT.

(To reiterate, the temperature is not 80 it is 107ish—I even heard as high as 110 the other day. And yeah, I have an ancient 1-foot wide oscillating fan in my room to help me survive. That is all.)

(Oh, *and* I don’t even get to USE the fan for myself because it is needed to keep my likewise ancient laptop from dying of heat stroke a couple more times. Which is just super. :p)

God bless all y’all PNWers. Those temps are high for anyone outside the Southwest. And God help you if you don’t have AC.

I’m in Nashvegas, and we’re getting the same cool, wet summer here. Last year was relatively mild, too, but not as much rain. We really, really needed that rain.

I’m grateful, because my window unit died a horrible death, and I’ve been OK, but my front door is swollen as all get out, and I’ll probably get Gates-arrested trying to lock the damn thing.

Here’s a helpful hint: Get a big mixing bowl, and fill it with ice water. Swish a washcloth in it, wring it out a bit, then put it on the back of your neck. It really helps, swear to God.

And popsicles. Just like soup warms you from the inside during the winter, popsicles cool you. If you have an Aldi near you, their fruit pops are awesome.

Hey Auguste, you forgot to mention it was 80 degrees at midnight *inside your home.*  Yesterday in Seattle my outdoor thermometer read 108.  So did a neighbors.  Yesterday in Seattle the thermometer in my living room (the nice digital one on my thermostat) read 92 degrees!  As this was the coolest room in my house I felt fortunate.

It was much cooler today—didn’t even hit 100—and as of 10:37 it’s still 82 degrees in my living room.

If the people who are bragging that it’s “only” 110 where they live keep their A/C thermostats dialed to 92 degrees during the day and 82 degrees at night they have a case for calling Northwesterners wimps.  If they’re like most people from *predictably* hot-weather climates and instead set their home and workplace thermostats at 64 degrees then perhaps they should STF pie holes.

To summarize:

Indoor temperature in Florida 24/7: 64 degrees.
Indoor temperature in Texas 24/7: 64 degrees.
Indoor temperature in Phoenix 24/7: 64 degrees.
Indoor temperature in Eastern Washington, Idaho, Montana, Blah-blah-blah 24/7: 64 degrees.
Indoor temperature in Lake Butler, Louisiana 24/7: 64 degrees.
Indoor temperature in Auguste’s Portland home: 80 degrees at midnight (estimated).
Indoor temperature in my Seattle home: 92 degrees at 6:00 yesterday evening, 82 degrees right now (confirmed.)

Who’s a wimp?

Meanwhile, though, what I really came by to say was “Glenn Reynolds et al. are strangely silent about the fact that the actual goddamn sun is currently sitting on my front porch asking for a cup of sugar. ”  Nice one, A!  Also excellent point that neither this heat, nor the midwest’s chill, confirm or refute climate change.

figleaf

Hey now…

Indoor temperature in Eastern Washington, Idaho, Montana, Blah-blah-blah 24/7: 64 degrees.

My heat pump is set at 75 in the summer and 66-68 in the winter.
(But yes, I’m in Eastern Washington. I will not go without AC, period. I’m at least moderately set up for this unlike most people on the wet side of the state.)

Here, in Santa Cruz, when the temps hit triple digits they open certain senior centers etc that have air conditioning because, because most people don’t have AC at home and sensitive groups may need help. Better that than finding corpses days after a heat wave. Any heat high enough to kill people should be treated with respect, even though they never really bothered to treat 113 degree days as dangerous in Sacramento, where AC is common. (Although I think they may have put an end to roofers working at over 105 degrees—after a guy passed out and fell because on the black tarry tiles it hits over 120)

The oppressive heat olympics are as silly as oppression olympics. 80 degrees at bedtime sucks.

It helps to surround yourself with ice packs when you go to bed. Put them on the mattress or pillow, near your chest and head, and your body temperature will drop more easily so you can fall asleep.

Any heat high enough to kill people should be treated with respect,

I had to take a bus to the county seat on Tuesday for an errand and was pleased to learn that the local transit center was a cooling shelter, as there are some folks who can’t afford a 247$ bill for A/C for a month.

I was picking up my car from a body shop, which has slowed down work(and created a backlog)because they send their workers home by 2:00 PM instead of 5:00 PM because of the heat.