According to this story, El Paso, Texas has won the dubious honor of being declared the “sweatiest city in America.”
While people here in El Paso (the town that Texas forgot) are generally happy to see our city celebrated in the national media, those of us who have thus far voiced our opinions on this issue seem nearly unanimous in our response.
WTF???
El Paso? Relative humidy over 70%? Anyone who came up with that figure has obviously detected something other than humidity in our atmosphere – the warm smell of colitas, perhaps?
This is a desert. Not just a desert, but a high desert. Yes, it rains here, especially in the spring, but humidity and heat almost NEVER coincide. And the only sources of water here are two small man-made lakes and the Rio Not-So-Grande, which has been irrigated and evaporated to a trickle by the time it flows through here. The air is usually bone dry. Sure, the temperature gets up to 110 or 115° during the summer, but it’s like standing in front of a stove, not walking into a sauna. Spending five minutes outdoors in Houston or New Orleans in the middle of the summer is liable to send a lifelong El Pasoan to the hospital for heat exhaustion.
I think that Procter & Gamble (who sponsored the survey) should anticipate a lot of annoyed messages from those of our locals who don’t appreciate being thought of as “sweaty.”
When the relative humidity is over 25% it gets miserable for most people here because far more houses have evaporative cooling than regular air conditioning units, at least in the neighborhoods I’ve live in.
A few days of 70%+ humidity would eventually cause the entire population to camp refugee style along the slopes of the Sacramento mountains.
Anyway, I think a calculation of “America’s sweatiest city” should not only be based on the weather, but also calculate per capita soap purchases, and the propensity of locals to wear sleveless shirts, spandex (or other nuthugger/cameltoe) shorts, and tennis shoes without socks in public.
Let’s see. I spent a summer living in an un-air conditioned trailer in Canutillo once. I remember losing a good 15 pounds in about a month and a half. I wondered about that humidity claim, too. It’s about 14% right now. I think Houston would be way more sweaty.
How’s El Paso been? Missed me much the last 25 years?
I worked for KTSM-TV channel 9 in 1979-1980.
And it was hot and dry back then as well. One of my best news pieces was on the summer heat wave. All news reporters had to wear a coat and tie when covering a story on camera - even in the middle of summer.
I did the entire report in my coat and tie, sweating all the way. Then we cut to a wrap shot of an ice manufacturing house, with a chest shot of me. As I locked the story out (“I’m Rico, Newscenter 9.”), the camera pulled back to show me in my coat and tie, and boxer shorts sitting on a huge block of ice.
