I hate summer. I really do. My co-workers don’t even bother to ask me if I’d rather have winter, because they know the answer is Yes. They’ve seen me coming in from my smoke break in a blizzard - snow, 30 mile an hour wind, -10 with the wind chill, all cheery, face glowing - Ah, I LOVE this weather!
We got lucky here in Denver this spring. After a five year drought, we had a long, cool, wet, late spring. Since spring ended in early June, we have had zero (zilch, zip, nada, no) days with the high below 80 degrees, and most of the days have been in the 90s. If it gets above about 80, it’s too hot for me. I’m already miserable.
Today, we set an all time high. Well, tied officialy, but that’s only because they moved the airport 20 miles out of town ten years ago. The fucking official fucking high was fucking 105 fucking degrees fucking farenheit. The actual high (downtown) was 109! The predicted offical high for tomorrow is 108, smashing today’s record.
I would appreciate it if those of you with weather deities in your pantheon would inform your god/godess of summer that Denver is not fucking Phoenix, Ari-fucking-zona. Thank you.
And the first person that tells me “It’s a dry heat,” is going to get a tray of ice cubes jammed up their nose. The ice cube tray will be conveniently located to me, as I’ll be in my freezer.
Denver is also not Bakersfield, Cali-fucking-fornia.
Y’know, 90 degree days are not unknown here, nor are 100 degree days. 115 degree days are (at least until tomorrow) completely unknown. What’s getting me is the breadth of the heat. Up until the drought, we would get breaks from summer in the summer, just as we get breaks from winter in the winter. It was usually high 80s in the summer, then you’d get your high 90s for a few days, then it would break to the 70s or even 60s for a day or two, then back up. The consistency of the high temps is killing me. Damn near literally.
Oh, come on. On July 3rd, a mere 3 weeks ago, we were sent inside from an outdoor barbecue by a chilly breeze. (Granted, if we’d been wearing our sweaters we probably could have withstood the chilly breeze, but in July?)
I am very happy when the temperature goes up. I realize I’m in the minority.
Don’t worry, soon it’ll be all cold again. In my opinion we are getting lucky in Denver right NOW. (Well, okay, tomorrow. Right now it’s only 77.)
I’ll add that those who live in Bagdad or Bakersfield expect heat. I don’t. If this keeps up, I will move to Tierra Del Fuego for the summer. Or possibly north of Scotland.
Yeah, I’m going to bed while it’s still “cool”. But if you see me tomorrow, sweltering and smoking in the Tech Center, don’t ask me, “Hot enough for’ya?” Fair warning.
AMEN! Preach it brother! I was going to post this exact same rant myself. Although you got it wrong. 105 was the official temperature at DIA. Every fucking news station downtown recorded it at 109. ONE-OH-FUCKING-NINE. Nine more than one hundred. 4 degrees over the highest God-damn temp in the fucking history of fucking Colorado. Ein Hundert und arshleichen Neun.
Yeah you little bitches in Las Vegas and Phoenix always act innocent and claim it was 156. But I’ve been there. You never fucking go outside. You have a Naquadrium powered air conditioner in every scrotumlicked vehicle and building. My fat ass northern-european built well-insulated self suffered through this hell on earth without AC in my house, car, or office Our ACs are symbolic, not effective. This fucking to the 100th power sucks. :mad: :mad: :mad:
Let’s find someone to nuke. Someone. Anyone. The French, the Iraguis, the Swedes, who the hell ever. Just push the damn button, Nuclear winter is the only option for survival left.
Damn straight we never go outside wolfman, we’ve figured out that that is where they keep the heat. You all have my sympathies, I’ve had power outages leave me without a/c for the better part of a week. It’s awful. Go ahead and snarl, you’ve earned it.
Keep as cool as you can though, heat that bad can kill even healthy young people. Check on elderly neighbors, etc. Your local news is telling everyone how to stay safe, right?
My brother in southern Ontario writes that they’ve been having a heat wave - high 90s - for about a week and people are dying from it. I’m in a place where it’s been a rough average of 90 degrees every day since May; it’ll be like this through September, and you don’t hear about people dying from heat down here. Can anyone explain this phenomenon to me?
I’d have some empathy for ya, TYM, but I’m too busy wiping off my own sweat.
Hmmmm…Denver…Dennnverrrrr…hey that town is near some hills…no wait…MOUNTAINS…uhhhh…the Rocky Mountains…now what is it about mountains that makes them sooooooo attractive…especially when it’s really hot outside…hmmmmmm…some of those mountains might still have some snow on them…now why would that be…it’s July and there’s still snow on them…maybe because it’s still cold up there…maybe if you could hop in a car a drive there to find out…
Eh, forget it…dumb idea…you’d have to turn off the air conditioning in the car to get up those mountains without overheating. Face it, you’re screwed. :smack:
Well, it’s actually easy to explain, if you’ve ever lived in both the North and the South.
See, down there in Florida, as in most of the Southern states, central air conditioning is practically a right these days, not a privilege. (Mind you, rightfully so, IMO. Florida in July without central air is about as close to cruel and unusual punishment as any American should ever have to suffer, and even then only for the most heinous of crimes.) You simply don’t see much of anything that’s been built in the last 20 years or so in FLA that doesn’t have central a/c.
It’s just not that way for alot of major metropolitan areas up North, in areas that haven’t been “gentrified”. (Gut-rehabs almost always have central air put in now in Chicago. If your building hasn’t had a major remodel in 20 years or longer which isn’t uncommon, chances are your only recourse to beat heat other than fans, is a window a/c unit. Expensive and highly inefficient.)
Not so many years ago, there was a major heat wave that struck my hometown of Chicago. So many people died during that heat wave, that if I hadn’t told you it occurred in 1995, you might easily think it happened 100 years or more earlier.
A major portion of the problem was this. As in any major weather extreme, the most vulnerable are small children and the elderly. Alot of the elderly in Chicago live in 2 and 3 flats or single-family homes in the city that do not have any central a/c, but only those expensive window units, and most importantly to the moral of the story, live alone and rather isolated from people in general. Keep in mind the South and Southwest sides of Chicago mentioned above as some of the hardest hit by the heat wave are some of the poorest and most underprivileged areas in Chicago-proper.
Alot of the elderly, who live on fixed incomes, are reticent to “waste money” on unnecessary things, and quite alot of them consider a/c to be such a frivolous thing, esepcially in a place where heat is not generally considered life-threatening.
Remember this is Chicago, it doesn’t usually get dangerously hot here. I remember the fridge cars in the hospital parking lots serving as “temporary morgues”, and it was as horrifying a sight as you’d NOT want to think about being able to happen in an American major metropolitan area.
The scale of what was happening simply didn’t occur to most of us until it was too late for the most vulnerable, and for those who did realize the danger weren’t able to mobilize fast enough to save alot of people. Now Chicago has plans for such an event. They didn’t then.
The plain and simple truth is, alot of elderly people simply didn’t realize how much danger they were in from our unnatural heat wave. Alot of elderly people were reticent to turn on window a/c units and waste money on air conditioning they couldn’t really afford on a fixed income.
There’s another interesting theory on why so many died during that heat wave in Chicago that was related in the article, and it’s a societal one. I think it might make an interesting debate, but I don’t want to hijack this thread with it, and frankly, GD intimidates me too much to actually start an OP there. :o
I lived in the area then, as well, and remember that time well. The heat was oppressive, but survivable if you had access to AC. As the quoted article notes, many poor/elderly people did not, and the response of quite a few elderly people to the heat was to close and cover all windows, and just stay inside - limiting their opportunities to find cooler places, as well as their exposure to other people who might see that they’re suffering from the heat. The city now has “cooling centers,” announcements to check on your neighbors, and other systems in place when we have a heat alert.
For those who didn’t read the linked article, over 700 people died during a month’s time and are attributable to the heat wave. Yes, 700 people in a modern city, only a decade ago.
We’re currently going through a heat wave, though without getting too far into the high 90s, and a severe drought on top of that. So this summer, the casualties will be the crops and not the residents.
I was listening to NPR this morning reporting about the rainstorm in Chicago that has broken the serious drought that has gone on since early June. June? Doubleyou-Tee-Eff? Not getting the normal amount of rain since last month is not a drough. Not getting enough rain since last decade is. Call me when you get so severn years of abnormally dry weather then we’ll talk.
The drought is an issue because at this point, the area’s crops - corn and soybeans primarily - are pretty much a loss. New wells are being dug because old ones are drying up. The last two months weren’t helped by our lack of snow (which contributes to the water) this past winter. It’s not just an “oh, my lawn is a little brown” issue.
