Here It Comes Again

[JStarr]

It's a desert, I get it, but this year's had some pretty high temps already- records set and such- and we've only had some light monsoonal rains this past week- nothing drenching and quenching. The late last year and winter growth is crispified dry- and here comes the heat again:

I think we'll be eating a lot of ice cream this weekend....

 

[brianvds]

And here in my neck of the woods we're freezing our toes off...

Yes, by local standards, that's pretty cold. I can just imagine how some members here must be giggling.

 

[Artyczar]

Yes, night and day, Brian.

JStarr, I've been to Phoenix in 114 weather--while playing in a band, traveling with five other people in a van. It was awful. It was during a time we absolutely had to get a motel room just to haul our equipment in so it wouldn't melt in the van.

Here it's been crazy hot too. Been flirting with 100 lately. Yesterday was almost 95. But down the hill (that's what we call the other desert cities, like Palm Springs, etc.) It was 111. Yuck!

 

[CaliAnn]

It was 112 here yesterday - and it's supposed to get hotter yet!

 

[Jo Castillo]

We were only 104 but 87% humidity. Yikes. Usually not until August.

 

[snoball]

Yesterday was 99° here in Arkansas and then we had thunderstorms in the wee hours this morning.

 

[JStarr]

Did it cool off, @snoball? If the rains come through at juuuust the right time here, just before sunset (with mountains to our west, so a few minutes earlier than the Almanac says) then we can open the front (west) and French doors (east) and the tub window (north) and barely crack a south window (the rain usually slants in from the south) and whoooooosh! the cool air sweeps in and the a/c gets a rest, and it doesn't feel like you need to stand in front of the open fridge anymore.

This kind of weather makes me want a basement so much- I don't know why there aren't basements here- but man I miss one.

@Jo I remember Texas- and Baja Oklahoma- but I was so much younger and we'd hit the swimming hole, or go fishing at Medicine Creek or Stillhouse Hollow or Belton Lake- being around a body of water is always better. Here, there's not too much water- something about it being a desert, I guess

Cali- do your best to stay cool. I promise you even a portable swamp cooler will help at those temps. People want to pull that "It's a dry heat!" horse pucky; that sun will sear the hide right off you. People die at those temps. Be careful.

@Artyczar: You, too- don't mess around when the humidity is so low and the temp so high. If you're in double digits humidity I'd be surprised. Take care out there.

Okay, now look @brian- no one likes a show-off--- But, yeah- I get it- when the weather isn't "normal" it can be bothersome. Make soup- stay warm!

"Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get" Mark Twain"

 

[Terri]

Good grief - seems like a heat wave has spiked everywhere!

Except for Brian's neck of the woods. And my own, frankly. We're getting pummeled with rain and humidity this summer, but the temperatures are downright balmy compared with what some of you have. I love being in the Great Lakes region! Everything is quite lush.

I will be sure to report all the snow and ice this January!

 

[JStarr]

Here- everyone might wanna save this for an upcoming climate event:

 

[JStarr]

I love being in the Great Lakes region! Everything is quite lush.

I will be sure to report all the snow and ice this January!

Two of my sisters moved back to Michigan- all six of we siblings were born in Lansing, Mi. I remember being part of tornado alley....

Mind those circling clouds!

 

[stlukesguild]

Here it's currently 75-degrees. It was in the upper 60s for most of yesterday. It's been raining and rain is forecast for several days of the coming week... so yes, as Terri stated, it's quite lush here right now. But I won't get too comfortable with it. The weather here can change at a moment's notice and we are noted for some rather wicked hot and humid weather in late July and August.

 

[OliveOyl]

All this week until the middle of next week it’s in the 100s. Then it’s expected to go “down” into the 90s for the rest of the month. And one glorious thunderstorm is expected during the final week. For the most part, I’ve stay locked inside with the AC on but today I just took a brief walk because I’m getting cabin fever. And I’m cold! But still, thank god or whoever is responsible for the idea of coolness….although AC presents all sorts of other climate-related problems, I suppose.

But I really wanted to show this photo by a good, local photographer named Brandon Stephenson. https://www.instagram.com/p/Ce2I9clLlW5/

I can’t stop thinking about it. It was taken 3 days ago, around sunset, and probably from the top of Sandia Peak (10,000 ft. high). That silvery stripe in the foreground is the “mighty” Rio Grande River, looking puny and insignificant. Behind it, are the Three Sisters (dormant volcanos), which is where I live, way off to the right. But the real strangeness of this image is that with the steam still coming off the hot earth and the low light, it looks like the surface of the moon. Or maybe it looks more like some dystopian, end-of-the-world place?

(All coming soon to a landscape near you…)

 

[JStarr]

I hate the summer electric bills....

 

[Artyczar]

96 yesterday. It's supposed to be a very hot weekend. Maybe past 100!

 

[brianvds]

I hate the summer electric bills....

Around here it's winter that causes the electricity crises. Houses are all designed as if we don't have winter, so people freeze their behinds off, and thus switch on huge electric heaters.

 

[snoball]

Did it cool off, @snoball? If the rains come through at juuuust the right time here, just before sunset (with mountains to our west, so a few minutes earlier than the Almanac says) then we can open the front (west) and French doors (east) and the tub window (north) and barely crack a south window (the rain usually slants in from the south) and whoooooosh! the cool air sweeps in and the a/c gets a rest, and it doesn't feel like you need to stand in front of the open fridge anymore.

Only for a couple of hours. We had more thunderstorms last night and it cooled for a while, but we are to be over 100° next week and mid 90s all the way through the end of the month. Then comes August, the really hot month!

 

[Enyaw]

this heat is almost as suffering as the carbon tax on our winter oil .. man .. these days there are not many breaks .. hell on earth is getting hotter.

 

[JStarr]

Around here it's winter that causes the electricity crises. Houses are all designed as if we don't have winter, so people freeze their behinds off, and thus switch on huge electric heaters.

Yes- here the houses are made to shed heat, so a cold snap in winter can mean the house feels quite chilly as it tries to shed the mechanically-heated air of the HVAC system, so the heater kicks on--

Our HVAC heater does its best, and we have a wonderful Canadian-made electric "fireplace" that warms the middle of the house very well, and, should it get frigid here (one year down into the teens! People lost pipes up in the attic-y crawl spaces! The damage done was amazing!) we have a few of those oil radiator-looking space heaters that also work well (last place we lived before moving to Az, was up outside of Olympia, Wa., the place was an old farm house, lath walls and lovely pecan floors, and an ancient heater in the basement that worked- for a given value of worked. No heat to the bathroom, or to the kitchen, and what got to the middle living areas was usually sucked out by the leaky original- with wavy greening glass- casement windows, so we used the oil-radiator looking space heaters. Worked for cheap).

I truly do not understand why the humans here didn't dig down and into hills and rises to tap into the geothermal heating and cooling of the geography. That's *sort of* what adobe does- those two and three foot mostly earthen walls are insulative- searing and frigid air stays out as the walls, themselves, become like a cave with a steady temp.

 

[Terri]

All this week until the middle of next week it’s in the 100s. Then it’s expected to go “down” into the 90s for the rest of the month. And one glorious thunderstorm is expected during the final week. For the most part, I’ve stay locked inside with the AC on but today I just took a brief walk because I’m getting cabin fever. And I’m cold! But still, thank god or whoever is responsible for the idea of coolness….although AC presents all sorts of other climate-related problems, I suppose.

But I really wanted to show this photo by a good, local photographer named Brandon Stephenson.

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

View attachment 32213
I can’t stop thinking about it. It was taken 3 days ago, around sunset, and probably from the top of Sandia Peak (10,000 ft. high). That silvery stripe in the foreground is the “mighty” Rio Grande River, looking puny and insignificant. Behind it, are the Three Sisters (dormant volcanos), which is where I live, way off to the right. But the real strangeness of this image is that with the steam still coming off the hot earth and the low light, it looks like the surface of the moon. Or maybe it looks more like some dystopian, end-of-the-world place?

(All coming soon to a landscape near you…)

What a beautiful image! In, you know, a terrifying kind of way.

 

[JStarr]

this heat is almost as suffering as the carbon tax on our winter oil .. man .. these days there are not many breaks .. hell on earth is getting hotter.

Is it any better for you, now, Wayne?

And where are you in the world that's managed to put a carbon tax individuals?