I’m spending a lot of time thinking about heat.
Today, as this post goes up, the high temperature where I live will be 97°F or 36.11° C. The formula for converting temps back and forth between the two scales is:
Formula used for this calculation: (97°F − 32) × 5/9 = 36.111°C
Holy Hellfire Batman!
Tucson TV weather anchors used to talk about the date the ice would break on the Santa Cruz. Locals joked that the ice would break on the Santa Cruz the first day the temperatures hit 100°F.
The Santa Cruz is a river that used to run year around in Tucson. By the late 1800s the water table had begun to drop and river levels changes. The first peoples who lived here used flood irrigation and relied on the river.
By the mid-20th Century the river no longer ran. There are experiments to refresh the aquifer.
Actually, the heat is late getting here this spring. March was cooler than normal. Erratic fluctuations are the norm in climate change. Living in a place where water and heat provide real boundaries on behavior, probably made me understand the reality of climate change more than people who live near flowing rivers, lakes, and where gentle rains fall.
Tucson has had as many as 108 days over 100°F (year 2020).
The SW heat will hit us more and more within this century.
100 degrees isn’t a real behavioral mark on the measuring scale. Personally I find 104°F to be a tipping point. When I am driving around Tucson I notice people’s brains bake, as judged by driver and pedestrian behavior right around this temp. Everyone outside (not indoors in swamp or AC cooled buildings) seems to be far more likely to behave erratically.
Heat is on my mind. Heat will begin. Heat will become uncomfortable. It is a certainty. The snow birds and majority of students will leave Tucson for summer. I will try to figure out a way to go somewhere other than Tucson so as to have a break from the heat.
Climate change is serious. Also please don’t joke about, “But is a dry heat.” We do have low humidity in Tucson much of the time. But we also experience Monsoon season. It rains every afternoon from late June through September. So we experience variations of heat, both desert aridity and semitropical humidity. This is difficult for Tucsonans who cannot afford AC.
Time to find a good heating and cooling company. I need some new cooling equipment.
I am concerned about global warming but I am also concerned about melting this summer.
H in #AtoZ2023 – Heat