Heat (live in, best, cities)

[elousv]

I think we average 25 or so days above 90. Not all years get to 100, but 1967 had 16 days above 100. Most of the time it is fine in the morning until the heat ramps up. It rarely stays hot all night. This summer has been fantastic, especially since we have so far been spared the wildfire smoke.

[Mister Torgue]

Originally Posted by f5fstop

I'll take the hot and dry any day over hot and humid.

Indeed. What makes Texas unique, especially north Texas around Dallas is you can get 115+ with 50%+ humidity fairly frequent and often. Hottest I’ve ever personally recorded at my house was 119 on a day with over 60% humidity. I almost died doing the yard work. So yea, I’ll take 115 and dry versus 95-100 and humidity days on end. We’ve been very fortunate the past few years to have had very mild summers for Texas. 95-105 temps and no 110 days in a while. Hah! GLOBAL WARMING!!!

Fun fact, it can get a little cold here too on rare occasions. Lowest temp I recorded at the house was -3 Fahrenheit. And this is Texas we are talking about. Also had 18” of snow once. That was brilliant, my wife and I loved that. I cannot wait for winter!

But I digress with my babbling.

[banjomike]

The most worrisome thing about this hot spell was our prolonged cool, rainy spring.
May was like April, and June was like May.

It allowed all the grass and seedling starts everywhere plenty of time to take root and get ready to grow fast once the heat came. So all the forest undergrowth is thick, lush, and drying out too fast.

If lightning lights up a tree, the fire will go to down to the bottom as fast as to the top of the surrounding area. That's what starts the firestorms when high winds happen.

Once a firestorm starts, they can make their own weather. When that happens, they can go on and on until they either run out of fuel or the temps/humidity cool and rise to the point they can't promote the fire's spread any longer.

That usually means a big fire will burn into October. Those fires can't be stopped, but with luck, they can be contained just enough to keep them from burning a town down to ash.

Woodsmoke is exactly right- in such conditions, the only way a home can be saved is to remove all of the surrounding fuel sources and pray. If a metal roof heats up enough, it will start the home burning.
By the time the roof is that hot, it's likely the electricity is gone and the water pump is out of business unless all the wiring is underground. The only thing left is to smother the roof with dirt and hope that works.

Swinging a Pulaski is really hard work, but it could be the only tool a person has that can still fight the oncoming fire.

It's far better to strip all the greenery down to dirt long before the fire comes marching over the mountain.

[pnwguy2]

Hot summers in the northwest are a crapshoot. 2015 was hot, 2016 was cool, 2017 was warm in July and August, 2018 and 2019 were average and this year is definitely leaning hot.

[volosong]

Originally Posted by banjomike

The most worrisome thing about this hot spell was our prolonged cool, rainy spring.

We actually had a sprinkling last night. Thunder woke me up around 2:15 (PDT), and after calming the pups, noticed a tad of rain followed shortly. This morning, the sidewalks and streets are dry, so probably didn't do much.

Coming from the high desert, I get a kick when locals start complaining how hot it is when the temps reach the mid 80's. If they only knew.

[dcisive]

I hear ya Volo. When I lived in Salt Lake there would be weeks of 105's in August. Nobody complained because it was a "dry heat". Yeah.......right. Like when you'd be out in the sun and feel your skin baking. The good thing is it simply doesn't last all that long. We also got a mild sprinkle but not much last night down in south central ID.

[volosong]

I had visions of lightening fires in the hills west of us. Same as in NoCal right now. Thought our time had come. Thankfully, haven't noticed any smoke anywhere around, so we may have dodged a bullet.

[nowhereman427]

Originally Posted by volosong

I had visions of lightening fires in the hills west of us. Same as in NoCal right now. Thought our time had come. Thankfully, haven't noticed any smoke anywhere around, so we may have dodged a bullet.

We have lots of smoke in NorCal right now. 0 containment.

[banjomike]

There was a little dry lightning here last night, but it stayed up in the air.

It's smoky down here today, coming up from California, but it's just drift- there hasn't been any wind today. At 33%, the humidity is unusually high, which makes the smoke more irritating.

For some reason, California wildfire smoke always has a faint odor of burning rubber in it. It doesn't have the pitchy smell a local wildfire has.

The heat has been oppressive today; my dog prefers to be outside when it's hot like this; he's more comfortable under the shade of my back yard maple, where he can dig up some moisture in the flower bed.
But not today. He wanted to come in by noon, and we both zonked out for a couple of hours, just enduring the heat. At 85º, the house is stuffy, all buttoned up against the heat outside, but it's 15º cooler, and less smoky inside.

The best of a bad situation. I'm hoping for some sundown breeze to refresh things a bit.

[elousv]

My AC has been set to 70 since April.