[QUOTE=Wargamer]
I was at a conference in Chicago in July 1995, when 800 people died during the heat wave. I think the high temperature my last day there was 107. I went to Wrigley that night to see the Cubs play the Reds. Gametime temp, at 8 PM central…103.
Man, it was hot.
[/QUOTE]
I was camping in Wisconsin at that time. My first exposure to sunstroke.
[QUOTE=Hostile Dialect]
Well, I can tell you for certain that I am not kidding. However, I cannot guarantee that I was reading an accurate measure at the time, and I defer to your memory and the federal statistics. I swear on my grandmother’s grave (which, incidentally, is in Tucson) that 130 is what it read on my combination atomic-synchronized clock/temperature reader/moon phase indicator/etc. thing in my Graham-Greenlee dorm room at the time. Apparently, the (included, but separate) device that I stuck on the outside wall to read the temperature was in the sun or something. Well, shit, what are ya gonna do? Either it’s in the sun or it’s in the shade.
Anyway, apparently I have misled you, Dopers of the world. For that, I sincerely apologize. But it was definitely over 100 regularly and it was definitely the hottest weather I’ve ever been in, and 85-95 in South Texas humidity definitely felt a lot worse.
I grew to like the Tucson heat. It feels so…clean. Whenever I’m in La Mesa in the summer, which is as close as the San Diego metropolitan area gets to a dry heat, I can feel just a tinge of that “clean heat” feeling, and it makes me miss Arizona.
And when I’m in La Mesa, I’m usually hanging out with a guy who grew up in Chicago, and he thinks I’m fucking nuts when the peg hits 90+ in La Mesa and the first thing that comes to my mind is “I wish I were in Arizona right now”. He’s probably right. C’est la vie.
ETA: Do not allow the jovial tone of this post to fool you into thinking that I’m kidding. I am very, very serious. I don’t mention my grandmother’s grave fercrissakes unless I am 130% sure of what I’m saying.
[/QUOTE]
I can buy that you probably got an inaccurate reading on your thermometer due to the sensor being in the direct sunlight. The sun sure as hell can heat things up hotter than the ambient air temperature. And you’re right, it can get over 100 here for 30 or 40 days in a row. I agree, the lack of humidity at least makes the heat more tolerable here. I’ve been to D.C. and St. Louis in the summer, and it sure feels more miserable in those places when it’s in the 90s. I do believe you were sincere in your belief about how hot it was here. It can feel like you’re on the outskirts of hell.
[QUOTE=Idle Thoughts]
I was living in Arizona (Phoenix) the day it reached the record of 122 F. That was in 1990.
[/QUOTE]
Me too! I was delivering pizza for the Pizza Hut at 35th Ave and Camelback. Try driving around in 122 degrees (but not really for long enough for your car’s A/C to really cool down), then coming into a nice, hot kitchen and standing next to a 600 degree oven until your next delivery. During which time, of course, your car heats up to something approaching the melting point of titanium.
[QUOTE=silenus]
Like Qadgop, mine was Death Valley. 120°+F in the shade. But that was only for an afternoon. We spent a week sailing on Lake Mead once where it averaged over 110° every day. No air conditioning, sleeping in tents, making an ice/beer run every 3 hours, bloodwarm water in the lake, so that was no help. Fun times.
[/QUOTE]
Oh yeah, in AZ the ground water is about bath temperature, because the pipes are buried very shallowly (at least where I lived) so there was no chance of a cool bath/shower for relief. And we didn’t have A/C at our house, just a crappy swamp cooler. (I remember being 8 months pregnant and having the INDOOR temperature with the cooler on at 103F. Down a whole 8 degrees from the 111F outside. Yick.)
Oh, for you non Fahrenheit people, 122F = 50C, 111F = 44C, 013F = 39.4C, roughly.
[QUOTE=Hostile Dialect]
The summer that I moved to Tucson, Arizona, it was 130 deg F. …
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I agree with cochrane that this must have been the temperature of your thermometer with the sun shining on it. 117 is the hottest it’s been in Tucson, (I grew up there,) though objects can certainly get way hotter. I’ve seen an egg fry on the hood of a car, and I had a couple of cassettes in my car twist themselves up into something resembling a used Kleenex once…
I think you’re a sicko freak for liking that heat though. I think it addled your brain. After 25 years of the desert, I don’t like anything over about 70 degrees and I get cranky when there isn’t a nice cloud cover to reduce the harshness of the evil, evil sun.
(And maybe I’m a sicko freak too, as I prefer humid heat to dry heat, personally. I’ve been in 100+ with very high humidity, and while it makes you slimy with sweat, it doesn’t hurt to open your eyes, and it doesn’t make you feel like you’re about to shrivel up and die.)
I think 105 for me, in Reno once. I hate heat. I get pissy if it hits 80.
The first couple years I was in Sarasota it got into the low 100’s pretty consistently, and it was right on the coast so the humidity was always sky-high too. A few years later we went to the Southwest during summer and I am sure that we actually hiked in 100 degree weather, because you could feel the same hotness on your skin, but it felt like the mid 80s (yeah, we took a lot of water.)
A couple years before that there was a cold front passing thru Upstate NY, in the -20s F. So cold that school was cancelled, but our mom still let us play outside for a half hour or so. It didn’t feel colder than 0 degrees in the wind, since it was almost completely still at -25.
I’m surprised that my personal range (130 F) is small compared to lots of people here.
[QUOTE=Troy McClure SF]
I think 105 for me, in Reno once. I hate heat. I get pissy if it hits 80.
[/QUOTE]
Here, let me teach you the secret handshake. Your decoder ring is in the mail. Welcome to the club.
~105F with humidity you could cut with a knife.
125° F, Sicily. My apartment had no AC, very few over there do.
[QUOTE=Troy McClure SF]
I think 105 for me, in Reno once. I hate heat. I get pissy if it hits 80.
[/QUOTE]
The weather, more than anything, is what I like most about San Francisco, and probably the only reason I’d consider relocating to there. I am also in the Sub-80 Comfort Club, and boy am I living in the wrong place for it.
Our house thermometer in Mali said 47C, as I recall, which is about 116F. I don’t know how accurate it was. I do know that taking a swim to cool down was like jumping into a pool full of warm spit.
Boy, are they. I grew up in the DC area and I would take the Grand Canyon any day. Those summers were really miserable.
Ack, thanks for reminding me! That’s the one thing you really can’t get used to: the cold water knob puts out hot water and the hot water knob puts out scorching water. Nothing for it but to drink ice water and beer all day.
Actually, it’s the more reasonable January/February heat that I like. Although, again, I’d rather have the Arizona summer heat than the summer heat in a lot of more-easterly locales. Even San Diego can get humid enough to be uncomfortable, especially if you spend a lot of time on the eastern outskirts of the city as I do.
Doesn’t it get cold and rainy up there?
[QUOTE=Hostile Dialect]
Doesn’t it get cold and rainy up there?
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Yes, in exactly the same way that LA doesn’t. I’d rather stay put and have the SF weather come to me, but, with the exception of the current winter – which I’m enjoying immensely – that seems unlikely to happen.
I <3 cold and rainy. Almost as much as cold and snowy.