Horrible, just horrible.
While driving yesterday the outside temperature display in my car was showing 119F 
. Now that display usually reads a little high; I’m not sure where the sensor is located but it was probably picking up heat from the engine or from the asphalt or something. The official high yesterday was “only” 111.
We took a week off for our 34th anniversary and went to the Wasington coast, Ocean Park (north of Long Beach). The weather is nice, temperature in the mid 60s to low 70s, and the ocean breeze is wonderful.
73 degrees here just east of Vancouver and looking like highs will be in the 70s and 80s the rest of the week, with lows around the 60s. Guess the current heat wave isn’t making it quite this far north this time. I was in Medford yesterday and it got over 100 degrees there.
I’m never sure of the reliability of that display on my car (2016 Dodge Dart) since I’m pretty sure the sensor is far enough under the hood for engine heat to affect it.
We’ll escape the worst of it, and have good water supply, but yesterday we picked up some more buckets for grey water collection in case we go on restrictions. I really hope we don’t have a big power outage and lose everything in the freezer. We just canceled a weekend away and a trip my lovely wife was going to take (for several reasons, wildfire risk among them), and I’ll be updating our bugout bags this week.
If either of you take daily meds, take a pic of the labels. You most likely won’t lose your meds and you most likely know your meds and dosages but sometimes I don’t think as clearly as I like when things go sideways so I like to keep pics of important to remember things.
Thanks. Already in an encrypted document and in the cloud.
112F yesterday, but down to 102 today. Very grateful for AC. We’re getting solar so the AC will keep running if/when the grid starts rotating outages. There’s a smallish fire not too far away, but I’m fairly certain it will be contained in the next day or so. It is a good reminder to update the bugout bags.
We’ve got just a few panels and an inverter, but this wouldn’t run the house air or even the garage freezer. What it would do is run phone and laptop chargers, and possibly the dorm-sized fridge during the day when it’s hottest.
I lived in four separate residences on the West Coast and not a single one had A/C. I didn’t even see A/C in my friends’ homes. I could see people in, say, Bend, Oregon or Fresno/Redding, Cal having AC as triple digits are a regular occurrence. But if you get into places like Ashland or Portland or Eugene, I can’t see people getting air conditioning for that one weekend in August that’s a little uncomfortable. This is completely different. We’ve already had blistering heat in late June and now again in July. August could be mass murder.
Our house in Albany (near Corrvallis) has AC. In the past, there have been a few hot days where we really needed it, otherwise I’d run it during the day and then open the windows at night. Right now, I’m extremely glad we broke the mold and have it.
You’re just way too smart for me! Which is a good thing because my short term memory has gone to shit since the world ended.
A friend who lives on a dirt road at the end of nowhere reports that she had a deer trying to eat a houseplant through the window.
I’m sending a monthly donation to the AZ fish and game program to give water to wildlife. I wanna keep those gormless deer and other wild critters away from people, and they are coming to people for water.
Yup, the critters are coming down from our mountain preserve. There are 4 kit foxes living happily right in a crowded neighborhood a mile from here, they have found access to a pool. They’re not skittish at all, and so gorgeous. The coyotes and bobcats are getting braver too.
While I am very jealous (I have never seen foxes or fox kits in the wild) I am also sad. Those cute little critters shouldn’t be anywhere close to humans. Bobcats should also not be close, people awww and oooo at them and then kill them when pets start going missing.
The pets are probably missing because coyotes are one of the few critters that thrive where people are. We kill off all the large predators, leaving coyotes that slot in the food chain and we come with cats and little dogs which are pretty tasty. We also have good garbage and when they aren’t eating that, they are eating rats, cats and whatever else comes to eat the garbage.
But back to heat wave, we have a friend staying here for as long as he needs to. His AC blew out and its going to be a month before he can have it repaired (lack of parts). He is going home for showers and to sleep because its just weird to be staying here, but spending the day staying cool while wishing he was home.
AZ Game and Fish are pretty smart here. They will not remove native critters from our mountains just because people whine and bitch. We’re in their habitat, not the other way around. So that’s appropriate.
And…it just started raining (pretty hard) here in the South Bay!
In the North Bay, the high for the day is supposed to get all the way to 72.
(For those of you who don’t know, 72 is stupid low for us in July.)
Wait - what? I want water from the sky! Stupid East Bay. kicks rocks
This also seems unfair and wrong. Stupid East Bay.
South Bay…SoCal
And it rained hard…for about 10 minutes…in July!