August 02, 2006
Headed this way. The wind is starting to blow, the thunder rumbling still a few miles off, is nearly continuous and getting much louder. I just got the cover on the grill which we had left off last night.
I think this one is bad enough to unplug... back later.
UPDATE: Not much rain, no hail, but lots of lightning. None of it was close enough to the house to cause me concern, but it was striking near here somewhere. As soon as the worst of it rolled through there were a number of sirens howling. I'm thinking someplace must have had a direct strike.
Posted by: Teresa in
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11:29 AM
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August 01, 2006
Excessive Heat Warning
Hazardous Weather Outlook
Can I say it's about 2pm here and it's a whole 86 degrees outside according to the NOAA official weather site. I am not impressed.
Really I'm tired of all this. Okay - over 95 you are hot - but please don't bug me about excessive heat until we hit 100 m'kay?
Growing up in the St. Louis area - our summers were routinely in the high nineties - that was considered normal. My parents didn't even bother with the A/C until it got to be over 90 degrees because it was too expensive and maybe not even then when they were feeling especially like the money wasn't there. We didn't have heat warnings and no one was worried about it being too hot until it did get over 100. We didn't have that cute little "feels like 110" crap either.
The current temp was the current temp - no fudging to make it sound worse than it was. Back then people seemed to have enough sense to get out of the sun when they got too hot. They also knew how to do things to cool down. They even knew how to dress for the weather. We seem to have lost this ability unless the news idiots tell us what to do.
This morning I heard a blurb on the radio telling people what kind of clothing to wear in the expected heat here! I kid you not - they did an entire 2 minutes on what type of clothes to wear... Holy crap - we've totally lost it! People - I'm not even 50 years old yet and I'm sounding like I'm a crotchety 98 year old lady, but all this "the sky is falling" is making me nuts.
We aren't talking about people in the heat with no electricity either - that's a whole other kettle of fish. We're talking about normal summer temperatures and people having a meltdown in expectation of being a little warmer than normal.
Before anyone starts saying it - let me tell you all - I've lived through my share of heat waves with NO A/C available.
A memorable 3 weeks of temps over 100 during the day and down to the high 80's at night back in the days of married student housing... did I mention that the building was made of cynderblock and we lived on the second floor - heat rises.
The year my daughter turned 5 - a period of several weeks in the Chicago area where the temps - just like this year - were up around the low 100's during the day and high 80's at night. Why do I say "when my daughter turned 5"? Because on her birthday - we had a party at home... 8 girls and their moms... no A/C... it was 102. We had 6 fans running in the kitchen and the kids never said a word. (probably because no one had A/C - we didn't have the money to put it in)
Guess what - that was the late 1970's early 1980's. Now we come to the mid 1990's and Chicago is having another "heat wave". Temps are in the... 90's... and Mayor Daley is declaring every single death in the city to be heat related. What happened in the period between the 80's and the 90's? Why are we suddenly unable to handle a heat wave? Well, in Daley's case - he had his eye on the almighty federal dollar. Oh he hyped his case and had boatloads of money coming into the city to help the people who were being ravaged by the heat. The fact that 10 years earlier it was worse and we never heard a word about it... well we won't mention that.
It looks to me like many of the problems are driven by the news media. Every temperature becomes an extreme. This makes them important it gives people a reason to watch their newscast to find out "how bad it will be". They pound it into people's heads that summer and winter weather are bad things. And I've got to say - I'm tired of it.
Yeah, it's hot - this I do not deny. It's also summer and after all the years in Chicago where we had summers that the temps only barely touched 90 for one day... then had to wear a jacket and long jeans to walk the dog at night. I'm enjoying having warm weather for a change. Soon enough we'll be in the middle of winter and I'll be freezing. So, I'll take the warm while I can get it.
Posted by: Teresa in
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08:34 AM
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