Heat Wave to Hit Two-Thirds of the U.S. Here’s What to Expect.
Dangerously hot temperatures are expected to spread across the Central and Eastern United States on Wednesday through the weekend, with temperatures soaring above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the hardest-hit places, the National Weather Service has warned.
And even when the sun dips below the horizon, temperatures in many places are expected to remain in the 80s.
The hottest part of the country? Smack dab in the middle.
Everyone living in the region stretching from northern Oklahoma and central Nebraska through Iowa, Missouri and western Illinois should brace for a “prolonged period of dangerously hot temperatures and high humidity,” the warnings say. People in central and south central Kansas should expect to endure highs of about 102 degrees; the temperature in Des Moines was expected to hover around 100.
Excessive heat warnings have also been posted farther east, for parts of New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania.
All told, at least 15 million people across the United States are currently being warned of dangerously high temperatures that could affect human health between Wednesday and Friday.
By the weekend, what meteorologists are calling a “heat dome” in the middle part of the country is expected to spread into the Great Lakes and the East Coast.
Extreme heat can kill. Here’s what you can do to stay safe.
“The combination of heat and humidity can take its toll on someone who is outside and overdoing it,” said Richard Bann, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center. “It can be life-threatening.”
Last year, 108 people died from extreme heat, compared to just 30 who died from cold, according to statistics on weather-related fatalities released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Here are four safety recommendations from the National Weather Service:
Drink plenty of fluids.
Stay in an air-conditioned room.
Stay out of the sun.
Check on relatives and neighbors, especially the elderly.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday July 18 2019, @09:26AM (6 children)
Gee -- thanks, Obama.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 18 2019, @12:04PM (1 child)
Like Australia... just picture the SouthWest desert spreading eastward through Ohio.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday July 18 2019, @01:21PM
In high school the coach said: you can put on enough to stay warm, but you can't take off enough to keep cool.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @04:25PM
Ummmm, perhaps you could unpack that a bit? I'm not sure what your point is.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday July 19 2019, @01:35AM (2 children)
But... but... but... Trump has shut down or kneecapped all the government bodies warning about global warming, shouldn't that have dealt with the issue?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday July 19 2019, @02:09AM
Yup! It's much cooler once you put your bury your head in the sand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 19 2019, @07:49PM
Whereas having government agencies constantly putting out information on global warming was accomplishing dealing with the issue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @09:36AM (1 child)
94-96 F through Saturday.
Could be worse.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @02:31AM
Yup.
http://www.doomgold.com/misc/thermometer.jpg [doomgold.com]
A pleasant summer day in the SoCal desert, July 2008. (And that day peaked at 122F.)
But I forgot to take another picture... cuz I was busy working outside all day. And lived!!
Meanwhile back here in Montana, we're finally getting summer a month late, after the previous 3 months up to 30 degrees below normal, and if I haven't lost count, we've only had four days since April without rain (and snow a whole month later than normal).
Now, for real flyover frying fun, look up the summer of 1936, when North Dakota had over a month of 100+ temps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave [wikipedia.org]
preceded by...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_cold_wave [wikipedia.org]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @09:51AM (14 children)
You may wish for nuclear winter too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @09:57AM (1 child)
You can't always get what you want.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @02:04PM
yeah, I wanted Stones tickets too, but I didn't get them either...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 18 2019, @01:18PM (11 children)
The administration has a backup plan. Thinking ahead! If Global Warming turns out to be a Real Thing, then Nuclear Winter can be a remedy!
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday July 18 2019, @01:57PM
Let's just hope the silver oxide chemtrails do their job. If that doesn't work we should use HAARP to set off a few volcanoes before we resort to nukes. A false-flag nuke is the last fallback before just retreating to the secret black budget underground/underwater/underMars deepstate COG bunkers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Thursday July 18 2019, @02:16PM (8 children)
Can't we just send some boron into the sun and quiet things down?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @02:33AM (7 children)
How do you get quieter than zero sunspots??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday July 19 2019, @03:16AM (6 children)
Quench the reaction.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @03:58AM (5 children)
Ah, I see you're going for the genuine energy apocalypse.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday July 19 2019, @05:33AM (4 children)
It's begging consideration.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @03:13PM (3 children)
Come back in January, when the story is about the 'unprecedented' cold wave and folks freezing to death.... say, got any surplus nuclear fuel we could send to the sun??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday July 19 2019, @03:16PM (2 children)
Right, no problem, just send in some excited neutrons. The surplus fuel would work great. Problem is, it will really suck for people in the southern hemisphere, so we kind of have to keep it under wraps. They're used to extra heat anyway.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @04:28PM (1 child)
No worries, they can just build giant parasols; think how pleasant it would suddenly be there!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday July 20 2019, @12:01AM
Oh, we can build them now, invest, ramp up production. They'll sell like crazy come New Year's. Heck, make 'em with flexible solar panels and infrared reflectors.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday July 18 2019, @08:34PM
Prediction correct! [youtu.be]
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @09:55AM (23 children)
Those fahrenheit units sound scary.
100ºF is mildly warm in Australia.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @10:14AM
Australia is scary to begin with.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @10:45AM (21 children)
http://thevane.gawker.com/fahrenheit-is-a-better-temperature-scale-than-celsius-1691707793 [gawker.com]
(Score: 1, Disagree) by MostCynical on Thursday July 18 2019, @11:31AM (20 children)
https://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2015/03/18/dennis-mersereau-gawker-wrong-fahrenheit-better-temperature-scale/ [agu.org]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Insightful) by stormreaver on Thursday July 18 2019, @01:07PM (19 children)
I clicked on the article, hoping for a soundly reasoned argument for Celsius over Fahrenheit. Instead, all I got was a sea of bulleted logical fallacies.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Thursday July 18 2019, @03:16PM (18 children)
Okay, how about this:
First, the problems:
- Temperature is a bit funny compared to all other measurements, because the natural zero point (absolute zero) is so far outside human experience as to be irrelevant for most things, and we almost never measure anything where precision is important (outside of certain chemical reactions in the lab)
- In isolation the scale we use is really pretty arbitrary. Inches, centimeters, or hands - so long as we all agree that's all that really matters. Except that it makes things "cleaner" if the base unit is just slightly smaller than the normal amount of detail that we care about so we can mostly avoid both decimals (or fractions) and large numbers.
My argument
- For air temperature, Farenheit is indeed probably a bit closer to an ideal "just slightly too small" unit size, but you'll be hard pressed to tell the difference between 75F and 77F without a thermometer anyway, so the larger units of Celsius aren't actually that big of a big problem.
- For pretty much everything else, Farenheit units are a bit on the small side to avoid large numbers, but still too large to avoid decimals for temperature-sensitive work
- Celsius offers much more natural endpoints for working with water at atmospheric pressure - and water is probably the single most widely worked and biologically relevant substance on Earth (and it's working with things where measurements become particularly relevant) cooking, disinfecting, storing food, casting cements... the phase-transition points of water are highly relevant to pretty much anything even tangentially relating to biology or weather.
- Celsius is integrated into the SI system, where all the unit sizes are interrelated in an easy-to-work-with fashion. The value of that cannot be overstated. Admittedly not directly super relevant to most people most of the time, but extremely relevant to engineers and scientists, and you really want to make those people's work easier, since their work tends to make your life better. Farenheight just sort of exists as a completely arbitrary system of measurement, just like the rest of the imperial units.
Basically, Fahrenheit admittedly has a modest advantage in offering more detailed air temperatures without decimals, but is inferior in every other respect.
And if you really want your weather forecast without decimals, they could always simply offer temperatures in dC instead of C: A slightly cool day is ~200dC, 400dC is a seriously hot, water freezes at 0, and -200dC is seriously cold
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Thursday July 18 2019, @05:32PM (10 children)
Imperial units are a bit off, but the U.S. customary units are not completely arbitrary. Meanwhile, SI units are not as perfectly coordinated as you learned in school.
For example, 1 pint of water weighs roughly 1 pound. One oz of water weighs 1 oz. On the SI side, 1 ml of water has a mass of 1 gram, but only at 3.98C. (there's a nice round number!). At any other temperature, the measure is approximate. Metric is based on ten, customary is based on 2 and 3.
Until recently, the Kg was based on Le Grand K. Completely arbitrary. Now it's based on physical constants (we're pretty sure they're constant anyway) but in such a way that they agree with our best guess at the old artifact based measurements (kinda like the argument that the Space Shuttle's SRBs were based on the width of a horse's ass).
When it comes down to it, both systems have merits and demerits. It's just a matter of picking one and being clear about which one is in use.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by stormreaver on Thursday July 18 2019, @08:21PM (6 children)
That's my opinion, too. I use Metric where I'm used to using Metric, and I use Imperial where I'm used to using Imperial. I don't share the fervor with which some people insist that everyone must use one or the other, and I have seen nothing compelling about either that isn't offset by some other imperfection in the same. They both have cases where they are better than, and cases where they are worse than, the other.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday July 19 2019, @03:25AM
Thank you. Some sanity in these unit discussions. They all have merit, and frankly, I can and do use any / all.
The one measurement system I really like but rarely gets used is inches with decimal. 2.34" for example. But most tape measures are in fractions, which can be tedious.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @03:18PM (4 children)
I've been familiar with both all my life, yet which gets used for what seems to automatically happen in my brain. Frex, temperature outdoors is in F but inside my PC is in C. Body temp can go either way (exact temp in C, fever in F). They're both useful, depending.
Conversely, forced change is just annoying, and removes a useful metric. (Yeah, I see what I did there...)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday July 20 2019, @12:04AM (3 children)
Oh, so now you're saying metric is useful?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday July 20 2019, @02:10AM (2 children)
Depends :D
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday July 20 2019, @05:45AM (1 child)
Wha? You buy Depends in metric size?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Reziac on Saturday July 20 2019, @02:16PM
Nah, don't need 'em that small ;)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 20 2019, @12:08AM (2 children)
Can you offer an example of a non-arbitrary customary unit? Obviously, the specific unit of measure called "1 unit" will almost always be arbitrary - most measure have a natural "zero point", but very few have any other point where a specific numerical value makes sense - angles are the only ones I can think of offhand, with 1 revolution and 1 radian both reflecting fundamental geometric relationships. Time actually has several natural reference points, though they're kind of planet-specific: day, year, and lunar month, and unfortunately there's no straight-forward relationship between them, and in fact none of them are even a constant length. So we've all settled on the completely arbitrary "second" as a common reference time.
The choice of unit subdivisions is to a large degree a combination of aesthetic and practical choices SI chose base 10, which is certainly easy for calculations, but admittedly lacks some of the graceful subdivisions that come in usfeul in so many situation. Some of the choices in customary are *still* really questionable though - for example 5280 feet to a mile? really? 5280 = 2⁵ × 3 × 5 × 11... why exactly is there a factor of 11 in there? Do you often need to subdivide lengths 11 ways? At least they have one 60 in there - those are beautifully sub-dividable (by 2,3,4,5,6,and 10) - and they could have added a second 60 by using 15 instead of that weird 11 (would have made the conversion 33% easier too, at a cleaner 7200ft/mile)
I should perhaps clarify that by nonarbitrary SI units I mean that unit sizes are chosen so that their fundamental relationships are expressed cleanly, without having to add arbitrary constants. The BTU and calorie both demonstrate that relationship in the specific context of water at reference conditions and I'll leave them alone as their own weird calorimetry domain thing - except insofar
For example, length and volume are closely related, so your units should convert without any arbitrary constants. In SI 1 cubic hand(decimeter) = 1 L, while in customary 231 cubic inches = 1 gallon, or 7.49052 gallons = 1 cubic foot.
Or take power - one of the most common ways to calculate mechanical power is force*distance/time, and in SI: 1N * 1m / 1s = 1W.
Now do that in customary, where hp is the common unit of power: 1 foot*1lb/1s = 1/550 hp (again that awkward prime factor of 11, which in this context means that there are no smaller units ...) ... and I'll say nothing more about the fact that the US already uses metric for pretty much everything related to electricity, which makes for a constant ugly conversion between mechanical and electrical power.
I think a big part of the problem is that the fundamental relationships between different measurement domains wasn't really well understood until quite recently - Isaac Newton only published his laws of motion, which were the foundation of those precise interrelationships, in 1687 - long after the customary units had been established, and the customary units were sort of jostled into something at least offering somewhat subdividable integer ratios.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday July 20 2019, @02:15AM
11: length of the average marching soldier's foot.
Well, it makes sense to me...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday July 20 2019, @03:16AM
I did name some non-arbitrary relationships in my original post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @07:14PM (2 children)
Here’s the deal: having multiple systems leads to mistakes, sometimes fatal mistakes, or lost satellites.
Even for something as simple as drive on the left or right
https://fox13now.com/2014/09/25/british-tourists-driving-on-wrong-side-of-road-cause-fatal-motorcycle-accident/ [fox13now.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @08:27PM (1 child)
Tell you what. If I want to do some chemistry experiments, I'll use Celsius or Kelvin. If I want to know how hot it is outside, Fahrenheit.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 20 2019, @12:17AM
Of course modern weather prediction relies on a on lots of complicated physics modeling - for which metric is much better suited. So it's a pretty good bet that they're basically converting their results to "yokel units" at the last minute in order to broadcast to the ignorant masses.
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Thursday July 18 2019, @08:31PM
Except for moms. They're all granted a vision of 0K sometime during pregnancy, of which they retain a distant perception upon waking. That's why they're always telling you to wear a sweater.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Friday July 19 2019, @02:01AM (2 children)
I think the main argument is that there are only 4 countries in the world that use Farenheit (the others being the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas and Liberia). By standardising on Celsius, we'd be able to eliminate all of that effort that goes into conversion - providing F and C options in software and hardware, printed scales on thermometers, different models of devices like ovens (which may need to have C and F versions for sale, potentially resulting in increased inventory cost for businesses), making journalists and writers have to include both temperatures etc. It's a lot of wasted effort for no particular good reason.
I agree that the two scales are largely arbitrary - therefore there's no inherent reason to maintain a different system to the rest of the world just for the sake of it.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @02:39AM
Why have two different models? nowadays it should just be a switch on the controller, or in the software as the case may be.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 20 2019, @12:21AM
An excellent point.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 18 2019, @10:39AM (25 children)
This is not an especially bad heat wave for Oklahoma. It's in fact a rather cool summer out there. I've seen years where it didn't drop below 95F even at night for over a month. The highs of 115+ made you appreciate the 90s a lot more though. Okay, no, you didn't really appreciate them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 18 2019, @12:07PM (18 children)
Y'all are moisture challenged. Down South, when it gets much over 100F that triggers the thunderstorms which cool things off a bit.
You need to get you some Gulf of Mexico breeze, then un-drain your swamps to keep the moisture around.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 18 2019, @12:36PM (10 children)
Well, OK ain't a desert but it ain't as humid as where I live in TN now either. The reason it never got down below 95F that month is the vegetation held the heat too well. Doesn't happen like that in proper deserts.
Tangent: Don't pay any attention to the "heat index". It's completely worthless. 115F in OK is far more tolerable than 95F in TN. When it gets that hot in OK your sweat evaporates and cools you down. When it gets that hot in TN you just get wet as well as hot; no cooling effect.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 18 2019, @12:43PM (4 children)
The thing I've found to be most uncomfortable is when the dew point is above the current temperature, as will happen in the mornings especially in places like the Florida Keys. It's only 78F, but not only can't you cool by sweating, the air has condensed on everything around you, and the dew is maintaining that 101% humidity. After the sun bakes things a bit it actually becomes, relatively, bearable.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 18 2019, @12:50PM (2 children)
Right there with ya. It was ~90F yesterday at 2pm here in TN and there was still dew on the ground.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 18 2019, @01:32PM
I can feel the sticky air in my lungs...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @02:44AM
I am reminded why for my Southern Sabbatical, I moved to the SoCal desert and not to Tennessee. (Apparently I only live in extreme climates.)
And those of us who have lived in real heat without air conditioning are just croggled by how easily some folks melt.
Can't wait to hear the equally dire warnings when the next rough winter comes along...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday July 18 2019, @03:05PM
I used to live and work in the Southeast. Mornings like that would be the worst. Temperature was often only in the mid-70s, but by the time I parked and walked 1/3 to 1/2 mile to the building I actually worked in, my shirt was often drenched. I took to keeping a couple shirts in my office so I could change right away and not look awful. A few hours later, I could walk outside for a while and be somewhat okay, even with the higher temperature -- because something would actually evaporate.
(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Thursday July 18 2019, @04:26PM (4 children)
I've lived in Phoenix for the last 30 years, I've ridden my motorcycle around at 122F / 50C (n.b. a leather jacket helps you feel cooler at those temperatures compared with no jacket) and I'll tell you that the hottest day I ever experienced was on a trip to Houston in July. Parked in a covered parking garage, and wasn't sure I was going to make it the 100 yards to the door of the building. How people swim through air at that temperature and stay alive is something that I'll never understand.
(Score: 3, Touché) by krishnoid on Thursday July 18 2019, @08:36PM
Adaptation, man [youtu.be].
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @02:52AM (2 children)
Yeah, I'd like to know the physics of this.. only experienced it on a hot day in Reno, where the wind was blowing like a bitch, but it FELT significantly cooler OUT of the wind. Kinda like your leather jacket when biking at 122F.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Friday July 19 2019, @05:20AM (1 child)
In my experience, above about 110 or so the heat gain from all the hot air going past your body is more than the cooling you get from sweat evaporation. Not quite the same in still air, but quite noticeable at 45 mph. Putting on the jacket vastly reduces the amount of hot air interacting with your skin - so you don't gain as much heat, and sweat evaporation can keep up. Don't think I'd want to try it with a tight-fitting jacket, though.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @07:40AM
I'd also thought it must have something to do with evaporation rate vs heat. But I never experienced this weird phenomenon at all in the SoCal desert (lived there 28 years), which gets considerably hotter than Reno, and if anything is more windy, but may not be quite as dry.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Thursday July 18 2019, @04:39PM (6 children)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 18 2019, @04:50PM (5 children)
But, don't the blizzards make up for it? I almost never see snow, much less a blizzard - they look like fun ;-)
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Thursday July 18 2019, @05:49PM
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Thursday July 18 2019, @05:56PM
Well, here in MN we are known for the cold in winter, but during summer 90's are common and we reach 100+ a few times a year. Usually we get high humidity along with those temps, which generally gives rise to afternoon thunderstorms. Generally the hot days don't go on for a long stretch like down south. This year has been particularly wet.
Gotta love the continental climate; 100+ in summer, -30 or lower in winter.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @07:42AM (2 children)
Oh good -- I've just found a volunteer to shovel out my driveway! :D
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 19 2019, @11:26AM (1 child)
The exact reason my classmate moved back from Boston after 18 months working there...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @02:46PM
Hah, that's just baby blizzards. If you want to see REAL blizzards, where you're digging out of 12 foot drifts, come to the Great Plains!
Wyoming's "Storm of the Century" documentary, suitable for frightening southerners:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl6Iz4dXGdg [youtube.com]
I found weather maps of the storm, and pretty clearly it was in fact a mega-hurricane, but over land rather than ocean. (And small potatoes. Siberia has these every winter, only bigger.... last year one Russian city out in the backbeyond had snow up to the 3rd floor windows.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 18 2019, @03:48PM
My first year in Arkansas was like that. It stayed over 100 for almost three freaking WEEKS. Night time lows were around 95, like you say. I kept checking the map, to see if I made a wrong turn, and went to hell instead of Arkansas.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @08:46PM (4 children)
What year was that? I'm genuinely curious what year you remember that happening and what the nearest NWS station or major municipality is. Because the NCDC records for the highest lows ever recorded for Oklahoma City are nowhere near 95F. They have only exceeded 80F a couple dozen times in July and August, ever. And they have never exceeded 85F since records began in the 1800s. If you'd rather not, I can check the data for all stations and records in Oklahoma, but I'd have to wait for processing time for all that data.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @03:08AM (3 children)
I experienced a night in Billings Montana in 1976 when the overnight low, according one of the radio stations, never got below 103F. (And it sure felt like it, too.) Yet when I checked the records, I found highest lows nowhere near that... but the records are from up at the airport, 418 feet higher than the city proper -- and a completely different microclimate than down below the rimrocks, let alone near the river. Probably was in a spot where the day's hot air never dissipated.
Where I live now, my front yard and back yard have different microclimates, sometimes to a rather astonishing degree. Matter of air that passed over the river and slid over the hill vs air that passed over the highway and yonder flats, which apparently clash right at my house. Many a time I've looked out the front door, dressed for the obvious weather, then went out back to the barn and found myself dressed entirely inappropriately for the wtf??-weather. (Yes, I did finally learn to look out the back door instead. :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 19 2019, @04:33AM
I know how all that stuff (oasis effect, heat islands, reservoirs, etc.) works. I also know how the models work, and imputation and interpolation work, and the mesonets. I also know that many random yahoos don't measure meteorological and climatological effects properly, like a radio station or bank not using a good shade temp. And, I know that peoples memory tends to exaggerate or confabulate over time, even when malice is absent. I'm interested in the actual truth. Hence, my willingness to see and analyze the actual data.
In addition, I am also willing to admit any mistakes I made. Like the one where I said the lows in Oklahoma City never exceeded 85, which was wrong as I data I thought was a proper model output was instead raw from a single station in Norman, OK (SE side of town). With a low-resolution local-effects model, a fast microclimate model and the metro data, the warmest daily low temp. for Oklahoma City, if you take the top of the confidence interval as the actual value, was just under 88 and that was a single day in 2012 just south of Lake Hefner on the NW side of the metro area, although the Downtown area got close. But, that is still a bit away from 95 degrees, but I haven't gotten the low-priority computer time to analyze the whole state, use a higher-resolution local-effects model, or a better microclimate model.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 19 2019, @06:15AM (1 child)
Also, that is almost 30 degrees warmer than the record temp (76) that BYZ posted here [weather.gov]. Even unadjusted that is far beyond most major microclimate considerations that I have a hard time believe it was anywhere close to that in actuality. Heat index, maybe; but not air temp.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @08:07AM
Yeah, that's the page I was looking at. And yeah, who knows how accurate a private station was. But I've become a little suspicious of some official records, too. When I lived near Belgrade during the hard winters of the 1970s, me and my neighbors would often note dawn readings around -60F, even tho the official record at Gallatin Field never got that low. And the official frost line is something like 35", but pipes froze down past six feet every January.
I'm about 15 miles down the road from Billings (near Laurel) now, and the highest overnight temp I've seen here was about 83 (I'm in a little banana belt, we don't get quite the swings they do up at the airport). But at night I can easily have a 15 degree gradient between my front yard and the hill behind my house. And it may be blowing 40mph right across the road yet be calm in my yard. It's really quite bizarre. :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday July 18 2019, @10:48AM (1 child)
They'd feel cooler. 37 degrees feels cooler than 100, psychologically.
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 18 2019, @12:12PM
In Germany, they bitch like it's the apocalypse when temps get to 30.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday July 18 2019, @10:55AM (5 children)
but who cares.
Canada (and the rest of the world) aren't America I guess.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @11:15AM
Nobody cares about your 27°C heat wave, leaftard.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday July 18 2019, @01:20PM (2 children)
You mean the other 96 % of the world population isn't America.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday July 19 2019, @02:14AM (1 child)
The other 96% of the world still lives on the same planet, last I checked, so you very much should care. Whatever climate irregularities go around, will come right back around on this little planet of ours.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday July 19 2019, @02:26PM
Maybe I'm confused, but it seems to me that the US is the country that DOES NOT CARE about climate change. The other countries, at least a number of major countries, do seem to realize that this is going to become a problem.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2) by TheFool on Thursday July 18 2019, @08:47PM
Not that I'm in Canada, but I'm close enough.
This is just our penance for laughing at more southern folks who think it's "cold" once you get below freezing, or who think an inch of snow means you should shut down the entire state.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Improbus on Thursday July 18 2019, @11:43AM (3 children)
I live in Kansas City, this is normal summer weather. What is with the panic, snowflakes?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 18 2019, @01:16PM (1 child)
It's nice and cool inside Microcenter on Metcalf.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday July 19 2019, @03:30AM
I'm near a Microcenter. Love that store. Serious nerd, I know. It must be a good place to work because the employees seem to stay a fairly long time. I think my only gripe is stuff is a bit scattered. There are at least 5 different places to find tools. Well, 3 major ones, 2 minor. But I've found some very useful tools for very reasonable prices. SSDs are cheaper than online.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 18 2019, @06:04PM
It's so totally normal there's an excessive heat warning [fox4kc.com] for Kansas City.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday July 18 2019, @01:15PM (4 children)
Headline over on TechDirt: 5G's Latest Problem: Summer Temps Are Causing 5G Phones To Overheat
My thought: can't they replace those temps with regular employees?
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Thursday July 18 2019, @01:32PM (3 children)
Other tech related news, some cablemodem outside plant hardware dislikes large temp variations, partially amps and stuff and only temp compensated over limited ranges, partially because some hardline is made of aluminum and copper and differential expansion of a hundred feet causes all kinds of hilarity. There's interesting technology to work around differential expansion and it works great when tediously installed properly, but "F it I'm late" during good weather means its often not installed properly and only works fine over a limited temp range.
More heat related tech news would include at multiple past utilities this weather would induce safe mode on the outside plant techs so never be out of sight of another tech (in case of heatstroke, etc) and take extra long breaks between assigned tasks in air conditioning, so productivity drops by a factor of three or four making it take a long time to fix "normal" workloads. Of course the temps mean the workload might be higher resulting in massive long outages for not terribly interesting reasons.
Some telco facilities have borderline cooling due to lack of maint and you can expect some overheating shutdowns on the hottest day in awhile.
Watching brownouts affect datacenters will be interesting. Where I live, industrial transfer switches for telco-scale UPS systems are far less reliable than AC power, so expect some dead xfer switches this weekend across the country. The most "funny" one I was personally involved in was a xfer switch that snapped to generator when a brownout happened, then the dirty contacts welded themselves to generator, tried to switch back to commercial power, failed because it was welded, power down the generator, whoopsies that was a major outage...
A pity the clickbait sites don't have any actual tech reporting about heatwaves.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday July 19 2019, @03:38AM (2 children)
Sounds like workers need some kind of vital sign / motion monitoring system that would alert other employees if someone seems overtemp, tachycardic, hyperventilating, low O2 sat, disabled, etc.
Interesting about the xfer switch. Somehow the big-picture got ignored in the thinking there. Keeping power on was not the priority I guess. Contact welding is a known issue, and you'd think they'd do something to pry them apart or something. Maybe contacts for reliability / safety, and some big triacs to save the contacts.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday July 19 2019, @02:51PM (1 child)
Eh, HIPPA stuff...
Yeah I donno the innards of xfer switches but I do know that in a civilized area far away from coasts where we don't have brownouts and blackouts, buried service is essentially uninterruptible and xfer switches are in practice vastly less reliable than outlet power. Yet if there is ever an outlet failure its unacceptable to not have a generator. So customers demand less reliable power, just kinda how it is, LOL.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday July 19 2019, @03:18PM
> Eh, HIPPA stuff...
Break-ins / leaks are only a matter of time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @06:33PM
sounds like a normal summer day in Texas! yee haw, motherfuckers!
(Score: 2) by srobert on Thursday July 18 2019, @08:31PM (1 child)
Vegas forecast shows highs of 104 to 108 F over the next week or so. Only a little above normal. But it's dry here. I'd much rather be here than in the sweltering humidity of the midwest.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 19 2019, @07:44PM
I wouldn't mind trading the midwest or southwest weather for the next couple months. Summer in the south generally sucks enough ass that I quit fishing by noon.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday July 19 2019, @12:10AM
"Come on boys! The way you been lollygaggin' around with them picks and them shovels, you'd think it was 120 degrees. Can't be more than 114!"
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin