Post by erik on Jul 22, 2006 23:30:27 GMT -5
To those members outside the US--I don't know if you're aware of it, but most of the good old U.S. of A is absolutely broiling!
Where I live, here in Pasadena, and throughout all of Southern California, the heat is incredibly intense--and in some cases, perhaps even lethal. It has been at 90 degrees or above every single day in Pasadena since June 9th; and today, we had temperatures throughout the Los Angeles area anywhere from 85 on the coastline to between 110 and 115 degrees in the valleys. Add to that a lot of humidity (40-50%) courtesy of a moist tropical flow coming up from the Mexican interior, and you have a heat index that approaches 125 degrees!
This heat and humidity, which is extreme even for California, has also caused some outrageous weather conditions. Violent thunderstorms over the Mojave Desert have sparked numerous and severe brushfires due to dry lightning; and where there is rain, it is creating flash flooding in the sun-baked arroyos. Our nighttime temperatures have not been below 70 degrees all this month!
I don't run the air conditioner at my house during the day (preferring to use fans) because of the threat of excess power usage causing intermittent brown-outs, which in this kind of heat would be lethal; I wait on the AC until after sunset. But even with the AC on, I can touch the walls of our house and feel it having absorbed all the day's intense heat, so it really doesn't "cool down" in the strictest sense of the word. There's no real place to escape the heat unless you jump in a pool somewhere...and contrary to what some people may think of Southern California, not every house here has one.
Still, I'm managing to make it, even though I am dripping sweat all over the place. Hope everyone else is coping too.
Where I live, here in Pasadena, and throughout all of Southern California, the heat is incredibly intense--and in some cases, perhaps even lethal. It has been at 90 degrees or above every single day in Pasadena since June 9th; and today, we had temperatures throughout the Los Angeles area anywhere from 85 on the coastline to between 110 and 115 degrees in the valleys. Add to that a lot of humidity (40-50%) courtesy of a moist tropical flow coming up from the Mexican interior, and you have a heat index that approaches 125 degrees!
This heat and humidity, which is extreme even for California, has also caused some outrageous weather conditions. Violent thunderstorms over the Mojave Desert have sparked numerous and severe brushfires due to dry lightning; and where there is rain, it is creating flash flooding in the sun-baked arroyos. Our nighttime temperatures have not been below 70 degrees all this month!
I don't run the air conditioner at my house during the day (preferring to use fans) because of the threat of excess power usage causing intermittent brown-outs, which in this kind of heat would be lethal; I wait on the AC until after sunset. But even with the AC on, I can touch the walls of our house and feel it having absorbed all the day's intense heat, so it really doesn't "cool down" in the strictest sense of the word. There's no real place to escape the heat unless you jump in a pool somewhere...and contrary to what some people may think of Southern California, not every house here has one.
Still, I'm managing to make it, even though I am dripping sweat all over the place. Hope everyone else is coping too.
. Anyway, I hope it cools a bit for drive back home & later this week. Especially the annual "Music@Menlo" chamber concerts start this week, which is great but downside is the venues (both of 'em) aren't air conditioned & can get really HOT. Stay cool everyone somehow 
. Ed
)
