“God almighty, I’ve known heat before, but this is – I hate the desert. It’s got no – pity.”
- Robert Ryan as Hans Ehrengard in The Professionals
Or they’re the ones who don’t wear coats when it’s 70 out.
Me? I prefer very hot and dry to hot and humid. I leak like a sponge when it’s the least bit humid. I’ve been to Phoenix many many times, and as much as I hate that climate, I find it more manageable in the hundred and low teens to the 90s here in Chicago with its humidity.
It’s so refreshing though, driving/riding by an alfalfa field. Nice and cool.
Irrigated?
Yes. [Discourse padding]
irrigation in the desert (like air conditioning) is an unsustainable practice, unless you are a special case, like the Nile.
Imagine how many humans could live in the american deserts without AC and irrigation. It’s a very unhospitable place.
I may not like working in the humidity on the east coast but I absolutely revel, along with all the bugs and birds and plants, in the glory of having warmth and wet at the same time. Doesn’t happen in mediterranean climates (they happen at different seasons) and wet is a special event in the desert.
My first duty station in the military was in Vietnam. I spent a year being wet, either from the humidity or the monsoons. It was the most miserable year of my life. Later in life, I spent two years in Bamako, Mali. It was much hotter there, but not nearly as uncomfortable. I’ll take hot and dry any day.
Reminded me of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which describes a gulag punishment cell which was kept just above freezing - so the air would be humid and sap the heat from the prisoner’s body.
I moved from North Carolina to the Sacramento area after grad school. Living in the humid climate of NC, I was accustomed to thinking of temperatures in the 80s as “hot”. My first spring in Sacramento one day I had the windows open and the A/C off. And then I looked at the thermometer and was shocked to realize it was around 85 degrees in my apartment, and yet it still felt reasonably comfortable.
Now, when it gets to 110 here, yeah, that’s pretty uncomfortable. But I would say I prefer it to 90 and humid. As others said, at least your sweat evaporates.
I read that book long ago and marveled that anyone survived those conditions.
Hot and humid is worse. I’m a lifelong midwesterner and getting less tolerant to the humidity. If it’s hot enough temp-wise, and rather humid, you start to feel boiled or steamed in your own skin. Also, anything meant to give cooling relief just gets slippery or slimy or even funky with water. (Summer mildew is no fun). The couple of times I stayed in South India it had been during the hotter, “dry” season, and pretty uncomfortable- but the constant sweat would evaporate, and cold water felt wonderful with a breeze. : )
I’ve spent quite a few winters working outside. 35ºF and damp definitely feels colder than 25º and dry. (Though the wind makes even more difference; 5º, still, and sunny may require fewer clothes on than either, if there’s wind with the other two.)
It’s kind of weird down here sometimes when it’s 86 and miserable at 9 am but at 3pm it gets up to the mid 90’s and is somehow more tolerable.
Give me my 110°-120° days with 0% humidity over 90° with high humidity any day. I’ve lived down south (Georgia) and in the high, dry plains (here in Wyoming); if I have to have heat, make it dry.
I’d prefer it to be 70 and raining seven days a week, if it was possible, though…
I grew up in the Central Valley of California (without air conditioning). Summer temperature often went above 100F. We played in the shade mostly (in barns, orchards, etc.) and took every chance to jump into irrigation canals (with god knows what toxic chemicals).
But I never felt beaten down by the heat until the first time I visited New York (about an hour north of NYC) in mid-July on one of my first after-college job interviews. I spent two days, and spent a lot of time trying to get from one air conditioned spot to another.
Give me dry heat, a shaded spot at a café and an iced drink any day of the week.
The most uncomfortable I’ve ever been was in New Orleans in the middle of summer visiting friends in an apartment with broken AC.
The second most uncomfortable I’ve ever been was when I was driving across Texas that summer on the way to New Orleans.
I still live there and we’ve been getting more of the higher-end temperature days the past few years …but one year we went to a new Orleans adjacent town in July for a wedding …the weather was miserably hot and humid (like 90 percent) and we had to worry about personal funguses something you don’t have to worry much about in the desert
We’re currently in north-central Tennessee (roughly between Memphis and Nashville), and at 9:30 in the morning the air temperature is 88 degrees with a humidity level of 70%, resulting in a heat index of 100 degrees. It’s not even really hot out yet, but it’s extraordinarily uncomfortable outside this morning unless you’re doing anything more strenuous than breathing.
Oddly enough, at my house in suburban Houston, it’s very similar (87 deg, 75% relative humidity, 101 heat index) but I’d say it was not extraordinarily uncomfortable. It will be dangerously hot this afternoon, of course.
Could be acclimatization. That’s a few degrees warmer than normal for early July but that’s just the way things are around here. Stay in the A/C, stay hydrated, and dream of what passes for winter around here.
My wife lived in Clifton.