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Another scorcher
By adamg on Wed, 08/29/2018 - 12:36am
At 12:15 a.m., it was 86 at Logan Airport. The National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat warning through Wednesday night - we can expect temps in the 90s with our bodies thinking it's closer to 105 due to the humidity.
Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sunshine, and check up on relatives and neighbors.
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Pronounced : Skwa-Chah!
Preferably loudly. With your shirt rolled up to expose your sweating belly.
Cooling
Shopping at a supermarket in the refrigerated food aisle is a cooling experiencing that is pleasant!
It's short-lived, but
shoving your head in the freezer for a few seconds is also refreshing.
Heat
Feels so good to have summer weather, knowing it'll be 35-50 degrees in 6-8 weeks. I'll be in the inground pool all afternoon today. Then the kids will come home from school and a popsicle and their swimmies will be waiting for them.
Must be nice...
Wow, must be nice to have your own pool. It's easy to enjoy the summer weather (knowing it'll be cooler in a few months) when you have such luxuries, right? Forgot those peasants on the streets! Ha!
Yes, I'm bitter. Very.
In 1972, my parents had an in-ground pool constructed.
Over the subsequent years, the biggest object lesson I took away from that experience was that you should never buy a house with a pool, or have a pool built, UNLESS you can afford to pay somebody for the care and feeding of it - which is far from trivial.
Like Yesterday?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rqZZgVxnCk
You know when the first 90+
You know when the first 90+ day of the year rolls around some nuts say stuff like, "Love it! I wait all year for the hot weather!". Where are those people now?(hint: in an air conditioned room because no one actually likes 95 degree weather).
Really though
We all know that the best part of Massachusetts weather is those 6 1/2 hours in early October between when we turn the ACs off and turn the heaters on
Still AC-less
Shut the windows and draw the shades first thing in the morning. Turn on heavy duty window fans as soon as the outside temperature at night drops below the indoor temperature. Turn on ceiling fans (almost all the time).
;-)
Back in the day my mom would
Back in the day my mom would cover the windows with newspapers!
Solutions for a time long past
I used to do those things, too. They don't work anymore. I still do, but my house still gets much hotter than it used to (my heating system tells my smart phone about it). Nights have been getting hotter for years. The low at the nearby weather station was 78 last night. No amount of blowing around still hot air fixes that.
This also doesn't work for a lot of older people and people who take common medications that impair heat tolerance. My problem is that the air quality can get pretty bad around here when it is hot, so blowing in outside air at night is a recipe for an ER visit.
Our climate has changed - we used to get only a few hot days, now we get many hot days.
Bottom line: check on older people, especially those living alone. Firmly insist on getting them to air conditioned surroundings. Don't be like Montreal with so many heat deaths, all older people living alone without AC.
It's still not that many
It's still not that many nights per summer that are above 80.
I'm afraid that doesn't work
I'm afraid that doesn't work when you live in a brick oven -- I mean brownstone/brick building.
All wooden...
... luckily (for this purpose)....
Oh sweltering memories!
1988 was brutal. I lived in a brownstone near Kenmore Square and the only redeeming factor was that it had a roof deck.
Every evening turned into a sleepover on the roof. We would drag our mattresses up through the port hole and onto the deck. Sometimes it would rain and wake everyone up and there would be this mad rush to shove all the bunk bed mattresses through the hole first, then head down.
There's at least one
I work with someone who genuinely enjoys this weather. I do not understand her at all & suspect she's actually from another, warmer, planet.
I can relate
My workplace can get so cold when they run the a/c that I am genuinely relieved when I step outside for lunch or to go home.
Yesterday I opted for open windows instead of a/c for the afternoon commute. I'll probably do the same today. I'll be out on a bicycle later this evening as well.
One of the garages (ambulance
One of the garages (ambulance) I work out of is cold enough to require a sweater/sweatshirt/job shirt between calls. Bouncing between that and the heat was not fun. Neither was yesterday, going from "just temperate enough to meld with the furniture" to "my shirt is translucent within 0.3 seconds".
alert
Is this a Hcnerf Tsaot alert?
Popsicle Alert?
I think in warmer weather there should be a Popsicle Alert System. Today would be a "have a whole darn box of popsicles" warning.
Popsicle alerts should show a stick
The amount of popsicle remaining on the stick, and the equivalent puddle beneath the stick, would be based on the forecast heat index for the day.
Based on this metric, the popsicle alert for today would be only a sliver remaining on the stick, and a large puddle beneath it.
SLUSH ALERT!
Flavor colors could be indexed to the french toast colors.
Watermelon is real trouble.
Orange Creme is trouble
Lemon - just hot
etc.
This is New England so...
It should be more like an Iced Coffee alert, keyed to the sizes available at Dunkie's, of course. Today would be a large... need to save extra-large for one of those weeks where it's over 100 for actual temperature for two or three days. Or maybe that'd be urn-sized.
I'll have a venti Coolatta
I'll have a venti Coolatta please.
Weather Upsell
I'm kind of tired of all this upselling with the weather. For years in the winter we have been told the actual temperature, and then the temperature "it feels like" due to wind chill. Now, in the past few years, they have started doing this with hot weather as well, as if the actual temperature isn't enough.How many "layers" of things do they really need to add to the weather? How about they simply tell us the actual temperature and let US decide "what it feels like".
It’s based on actual numbers
The “real feel” is nothing more than Accuweather slapping a registered trademark on the wind chill and heat index scales that have been around for a long time.
Myself, I can’t stand the humidity, so when it’s 75 with a dew point of 70, I’m miserable even without a heat index.
Problem is...
That "real feel" assumes that people know what the reference temperature feels like.
Say it's 90 and the "real feel" is 95. Rational man/woman should think back to the last time it was 95 out if he/she wants to understand what it's truly like out. But what was the real feel on that other day?!?
Problem is, there's too much moving of the goal posts.
Not really effective communication
The use of heat index is controversial in the abstract, but it is very important for triggering communications by the National Weather Service. In fact, several New England states recently did a study, as did New York, and the NWS dropped the temps at which they put out warnings as a result (ER visits steadily rise to about 87F, then escallate sharply above that)
I spent way too long sorting out the lay explanation for a report that's due out soon ... and I appreciate seeing these complaints because I now know that what I did was needed! The basic thing to remember about heat index is this: There is a reference (baseline) level of HUMIDITY for which these things are normalized - 40%. That was the key concept that I added to my explanation.
When I was growing up, I lived for a time in a place where it could hit 105 on a hot summer day. A "dry" 105 can be nasty - but not nearly the incredible life sucking beastly heat belching level of nasty of the 104F I experienced on July 22, 2011. That's because the 105 in a Palouse town with 10% humidity is nothing at all like 104 with 50% humidity. That 105 in the desert doesn't even chart, because the reference humidity level is 40%!
Current temp: 96F with Humidity 50% = Heat Index of 108
Heat index and wind chill are
Heat index and wind chill are too complicated for the general population. But they do make a difference. 85 in Europe with 20% humidity was much, much more tolerable than 72 here with 80% humidity.
These Metrics Are Used Primarily For Hype
To make the weather sound more extreme than it really is. Otherwise, how come we never hear about wind chill factor in the Summer, or heat index in the Winter?
Bob: Emily, the thermometer is currently reading 96 degrees. But with the northerly breeze coming off of the harbor, that's going to make these temperatures feel like they're in the upper 80's!
Emily: Wow! Stay safe out there, Bob!
Translation
"Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sunshine, and check up on relatives and neighbors."
Head for the bar.
Officially
I have to say that you have to be careful of alcohol since it lowers heat tolerance.
Personally, I like the cut of your jib! Save me a spot at the bar.
I'm safe
My last actual drink was in a previous decade. But the wording of the warning made me nostalgic.