How I hate summer. How I hate Texas in the summer. How miserable it is to be in Dallas today:
Relentlessly sweltering heat across Texas was blamed Saturday for three deaths in Dallas County, and forecasters warned that the worst is likely still ahead.The Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed three heat-related deaths -- two people last month in their 80s, and a 49-year-old man in June -- as the Dallas area braced for an expected 107-degree scorcher Sunday that would rank as the hottest day of the year.
Saturday's high of 104 around Dallas was the ninth straight day of triple-digit heat, a stretch that began at the end of the fourth-hottest July on record in North Texas.
There's no relief in sight, either.
"I'm looking at 10 days (ahead), and I don't see any big break," said Dan Shoemaker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Somebody asked in the combox for an update on my garden. This scorching summer has done a number on it. It's been pretty awful. My fig tree stopped producing. That's pretty much how it's been around here.
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Right with you, Rod. We are predicted to tie a record 108 F today in Oklahoma.
The priest has prayed for rain the last two weeks in mass. Last week it was the remnants of that hurricane which swung back to give us a shower. This week, it appears a tropical storm is aiming for us again! ;-)
Some wag once said that if he owned real estate in Hell and Texas he'd live in Hell and rent out Texas. I don't want to cast aspersions on Texas but all those bumper stickers that say "Don't mess with Texas"? If you guys were really all that, they'd say, "Go ahead--mess with Texas". However, Texas is the (adopted) home of Ron Paul, great American and friend of the Constitution, so it can't be all bad.
It is hot and humid in the summer in Virginia but not THAT bad. Mountains (where i live) and coast usually cooler. Guess Big D-Ft. Worth doesn't have any of that. I am sure that the Texas Gulf Coast is not as bad, though there's hurricanes to worry about.
Back in the day, as they say, when I was a kid, no one had AC. I remember the theater in my town advertising that it was air conditioned like that was a big deal, which is was. But life took a slower pace in the pre-AC South. Businesses closed at noon on Wednesday. Things moved more slowly, coming to life at night when it cooled down a bit. People sat on their porches and visited. Now you never see your neighbors when it's hot, they're all inside in the AC.
I don't want to give up my AC which we only got about 15 years ago, but I hate that "closed up" feeling all summer. If you are in the house with the windows shut and the AC running, it might as well be winter for all you can enjoy the outdoors. Whenever the temp and humidity around here go below 80 degrees, we turn off the AC and open the windows. Whole house attic fans help; ours unfortunately died and has to be replaced; it really made a difference and was often the difference between running the AC or not. I try to only run the AC between June 1 and September 15. Then turn it off, no matter how hot it is in late Sept. and early Oct. Hate those big electric bills!!!! Winter we have a woodstove for auxiliary heat so our biggest electric bills are August, followed by July and February. Fortunately, had cooler than normal weather in June, didn't have to turn on AC until July.
Hope you get some relief down there soon. I'd rather have a root canal without anesthesia than live in Dallas in the summer! Visited there once, it was truly awful!!!!
Here's the other thing- hot as it is down here in Texas during the summer, when you go inside any office buildings, it's freeeezing cold. You have to dress for the heat outside, and then you have to bundle up on the inside! Can't they adjust the thermostats and save electricity?
Better than Kuwait, is all I can say. Ground temperatures on the Tarmac/Flightline out there have been recorded at 145, though that "only" translates to 130 in the shade. AC at full blast in the tents brought the temp down to 90. Night time temps dropped to 90, as well, but with a full-on blasting hot wind it still wasn't pleasant. Let's not even talk about the port-a-johns which weren't emptied out for an entire week...
We had to conduct firing ranges out there, in full battle rattle. So hot, you'd scorch your hands trying to collect up the expended brass at the end of the exercise. The cool high tech flag patches melted off our uniforms. Which amused us to no end. Which is funnier, that they didn't think to make the damn things to withstand Kuwait temperatures, knowing full well they would be issued to U.S. servicemembers in the Middle East? Or that it was just that hot?
It's not to bad up in here in Iraq, but then I'm not on convoy duty, nor do I have to pull guard duty in full body armor (got that gig a bit last tour.) It was 116 for four or five days in a row. Lately it's only been 108 or so. Humidity's low, on the plus side. About 20 or 25% I believe.
The most hilarious part of this is that we re-deploy to Fort Drum, NY, where it doesn't even reach 0 degrees for weeks on end in January-February. And out at the ranges and field sites it's back to port-a-johns, just like in Kuwait. Join the Army and you can experience a port-a-john at 135 degrees and at -15 degrees. Why isn't THAT in their recruiting commercials?? ;)
First, let me say, AnotherBeliever, thank you for your service.
Next....I now feel cool after hearing your story. Of course I don't live in Texas like many of the preceding posters do, I live in RI, where folks complain when it is above 90.
Stay Safe!
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