The highest temperature ever recorded in South Dakota was yesterday.

[NNadir]

http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2006/07/20/news/latest_news/e9cafd9a79e43d26862571b100499d9e.txt

[napi21]

1. WOW 120!!!!!! I've been b'ing about the high 90's here in Ga.

It's been awful and I simply don't go out of the house! I can't even imagine 120, and in the Dakotas it's worse because people never experience anything like that!

[jwirr]

2. Those kind of temps in SD more than likely put animals at risk too.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

3. Don't give them too much sympathy...

... the idiots that live out here vote straight ticket GOP and would punch you in the mouth for uttering the words "Al Gore".

[NNadir]

4. Well I have some sympathy for all of us who live on the planet.

I SD it may be about people reaping what they sow, but there are many innocents caught in the crossfire.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

14. my point exactly...

... they reap what they sow, and now they want federal bailouts, the GOP governor (he of the abuse of the state airplanes for personal and family use) what on the local CBS affiliate sunday night news magazine whining how they need help in that area. And Thune is feckless as to helping.

[phantom power]

5. I used to look forward to the future. These days I mostly fear it.

[NNadir]

12. I hear you.

The worst part is that we both have children.

[Dead_Parrot]

19. Bummer, isn't it?

No prizes, btw, for guessing who 'donated' the eye for my new avatar.

The worst thing is, it's been beautiful down here for the last few days: The middle of a NZ winter with temperature in the mid forties, a perfectly clear sky and a gentle breeze blowing off the mountains:

The calm before the storm.

Damn.

[n2doc]

6. But it's a DRY heat! n/t

[maxsolomon]

7. well, it is!

105 & sodden in Houston is WORSE than 120 in SD.

hell, SEATTLE was at 90 yesterday! our homes aren't built for that kind of weather. sweltering!

[silverojo]

9. Enough of the "dry heat" myth, please!

I've lived in AZ for 20 years after living 20 years near SD (in Nebraska, to be specific). The dry heat here is INFINITELY worse than 105 with humidity, b/c at least with humidity, you can recognize the danger signs of heat stroke before it's too late.

Around here lately, it's been record-breaking 115-118 heat (121 in Gila Bend), and we're all PRAYING for the monsoon-season humidity to finally make it here so we can have some temps under 110 for a change.

Dry heat is lethal. Period.

[maxsolomon]

11. i admit it: i relate to dry heat like a tourist

it seems like a welcome break from the tropical humidity i grew up with on the banks of the ohio. i'm always super paranoid about hydration out in the desert. but i don't have to live there, so i'll acquiesce to your superior experience.

summer in seattle: temps never get TOO crazy, and the humidity never gets TOO stifling. i can handle one week of this, but all the wimps i work with are crumbling under the pressure.

[bloom]

15. So you think the Heat Index is nonsense?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_index



http://www.qra.org/training/wheat3.html


_________________________________________

How about wind chill - is that nonsense, too?

[Pooka Fey]

16. I don't recall anyone saying that the Heat Index is nonsense.

However if I was going to judge the validity of a chart printed on paper and the experience of someone who has spent more than a decade living in an extremely hot climate, I would tend to believe the person - but that's just me. I've lived in Phoenix for 14 years, and just because that little chart says that a 120 air temperature feels like 107 when there is 0 humidity doesn't mean that I'll defer to the opinion of the chart. How something "feels" is a rather subjective thing to measure definitively, on a graph. How many people did they ask? Did the researchers talk to 10,000 Phoenicians and ask them to put a number on how hot they felt on a brutal unforgiving 118 degree summer day? Probably not, because they would have subjected themselves to much verbal abuse and maybe gotten slapped to boot.

I've experienced 107 many times, and I've experienced 118/119 a couple of times, which is more than I'd care to. I wasn't here in 1990 for the 120 degree day, but I know they shut down Sky Harbor Airport because it was unsafe to operate the planes at that temp. I personally believe that the "it's a dry heat" saying was conceived as a very successful public relations slogan to entice people to live in what is a very unforgiving climate for half of the year.

Like my fellow Arizona resident, I can't wait for the monsoons to kick in so that the temperature falls down to the lower 100's, no matter that it is much more humid and no matter that the little chart says that I should feel like the temp is 149 degrees when it's 105 degrees and raining. In my opinion, that's ridiculously and laughably inaccurate. Wind chill and how cold air affects the body is a different principal altogether.

120 is lethal for humans and animals. Anyone who ventures outside or doesn't bring in their pets or tend to their livestock during those temps is playing a dangerous game.

[bloom]

17. "just because that little chart says that a 120 air temperature feels like

107."


If you lived with dry heat - then you would associate 120 with a dry 120.

If you lived with humid heat and had experienced 95 degrees with 70+ humidity and visited a dry heat place of 120 - you might see both things as similarly awful. That was my experience.

[silverojo]

8. It's been 118 out here in Phoenix

Our all-time high was 122, in 1990.

No, there's no global warming going on. Uh-uh. :sarcasm:

[hatrack]

10. I heard an interesting report about SD at a beekeeping meeting last wk

According to the professor who was there to talk about (among other things) tracheal and varroa mites, the heat is absolutely crushing commercial apiaries in the state.

One operator, a friend of the professor, had a commercial string of about 500 hives just about wiped out by the heat - the only hives that made it were those close to dams and reservoir lakes.

The rest were simply destroyed. He said the ground was carpeted with the bodies of millions of dead bees.

[phantom power]

13. You are not helping me to feel less fear.

Not that making me feel less fear is your responsibility... :evilgrin:

[Dead_Parrot]

20. Hatrack News:

He reports, you despair.

[hatrack]

21. Yeah, but it's the dry despair!

:toast:

[Dead_Parrot]

22. It might well be, if the price of beer goes up.

:toast:
:(

[phantom power]

23. LOL! If forums had mottos, I'd nominate that for E/E

[NNadir]

18. Ow. n/t.