Monday, July 2, 2012

OMG! The Heat!


If I read or see one more story about how the power outages in Washington D.C. have turned the city into a war zone with panic buying of every available bottle of water or can of beans in a 100 mile radius I will go off my nut. You can bet that Congress will be nice and cool. Maybe all those people without services should set up home at the Capital.

"We just couldn't save the ice cream. Once the power went out we had to make a choice between beef and dairy. It was the worst day of my life." - Juan Lopez - Bagboy - Piggly Wiggly

Triple digit temperatures, no power for air conditioning or refrigeration. That is just a recipe for people to start chewing each others faces off. And to make the news better, they have let people know that it might not be until Friday before services are fully restored. Happy 4th of July America!

That is some heavy duty misery. Maybe the city officials will plan better in the future. Though you never can really plan for the worst case scenerio all the time. If it's not the snow storms it's the heat or the thunderstorms. People in 'storm alley' never seem to get a break. That kind of metorological instability must be difficult to live through on a day to day basis.

I am a Polar bear and fuction best in the ice and cold. I fully admit that I am useless once it warms up. I feel most near death when the outside temperature matches the inner temperature of my body. Once you get into those triple digits I am just begging for death. Add to that the humidity and those are inhuman conditions.

How dare the world leave me unsuited for such discomfort. I am a hot house orchid - only very carefully controlled environmental conditions will help me reach my full 'bloom'.

I once sat in a cold tub in Toronto and watched the temperature on the weather channel go from 30 to 40 degrees Celsius in less than two hours. Drinking my own bath water still didn't keep me from feeling dehydrated.

I have lived in a place that reached (theoretical) -70 Celcius for a week in the dark of December. I say theoretical because in those conditions they don't have ways to measure the true temperature. That is more preferable to me than summer in the jungle.

I am lucky to live in a place where a local lake moderates the heat of a prairie summer. It never gets too hot for too many days without a nice thunderstorm to cool everything down.

According to preliminary data from NCDC, 2,755 daily records were set across the country for daily high temperatures, including at least one in every state. At least 78 all-time record high temperatures were set or tied at various locations around the United States. The highest temperature was 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47 Celsius) on July 12 in Shamrock, Texas. By August 3, Dallas had experienced 34 consecutive days of temperatures above 100F (38C); Oklahoma City had crossed that threshold 41 times this year.

5 comments:

Erik Johnson Illustrator said...

When we learned it was going to break 100 in Michigan on Tuesday and Wednesday, my brother and I planned for impending heat wave by clipping coupons for all the mall food court places and bought tickets for afternoon screenings of Amazing Spider-Man in the cool air conditioned theater.

M. D. Jackson said...

Meanwhile, in the holiday paradise where I live, what should normally be a 36 degree celsius (96.8 degree fahrenheit) summer is being drowned by near constant rain.

Debra She Who Seeks said...

I would not be able to live in the crazy heat they're getting in the southern States right now.

DrGoat said...

I'll take some of that rain MD. We are hoping the monsoons start today. Yesterday was 105 degrees....miserable.

MichaelRbn said...

Take it from this DC resident. The power failures are all in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs. Here in the city our power lines are buried underground and not subject to disruption by falling branches.

PS: love your site.