Share your heat wave stories.

[ColbertWatcher]

I am slowly recovering from the heat out here in Los Angeles.

It's very hot and the medicine I have to take makes me sleepy, so all that together makes me blech.

And it makes me remember the summer of 2000 when Enron decided to play games with California's electricity "market".

We had "rolling blackouts" "rolling brownouts" and the energy corporations gouged everyone while the GOP-controlled media pretended everything was just fine.

What do you remember from the worst heat wave you've been through?

[pink-o]

1. I drove down from Sonoma this morning...

It was already 85 by 11 AM, so I was looking forward to coming home to the City. And today, here, it's in the high 70s, but there's this gorgeous cool breeze blowing. I biked out to the beach, and thru Golden Gate Park, and the scenery was glorious. This has got to be the first June it's actually not socked in with fog.

I know the rest of the state is to the point of NEVER denying Global Warming again, but San Francisco is just perfect right now

[CreekDog]

43. wasn't perfect in SF Friday at 97

104 here just outside the city :crazy: and yesterday was the second day this year we cracked 100 :wow:

[pink-o]

44. I know...

..For us near the beach to have such perfect weather, it meant the rest of the Bay Area had to really suffer.

And let me tell ya, the beach was CROWDED on Saturday!

But today, I'm looking at overcast, typical June Gloom from my front window. Hope that brings you some relief where you live!

[fed-up]

2. suffered heat exhaustion a year ago-after driving in hot van-no A/C-luckily

I was driving to BF's farm and after collapsing-but still semi-coherent I was able to communicate I needed water and was overheated-in fact I had stopped perspiring



He had just walked into his onion shed where I was and immediately doused me with cold water and then gave me water and walked me slowly into air conditioned house-edited to add that I was not capable of moving my body the 5 feet to the hose to get water by myself and was starting to feel delerious (sp?)


other heat wave was when I first moved to Chico and had my first 117 degree day

took my then 11 YO son to the creek where he discovered the danger of swimming between V-wedged underwater rocks and almost getting stuck

When he surfaced he had the most petrified look on his face and said he would never, ever do that again

we did spend the rest of the day IN the water to stay cool

[ColbertWatcher]

11. I went outside earlier...

...and there was this unimaginably hot wind blowing around.

I cannot imagine what it must like to be homeless in this heat.

[shanti]

34. and you know what really sucks

about HOT LA days? many of the homes (and apartments) have no AC because they never needed it! i was born and raised in so cal and never felt the kind of heat then that there is now.

[ColbertWatcher]

38. So true about the AC...

...and the heat nowadays.

I laugh at people who pretend there's no such thing as global warming.

[AlCzervik]

3. i think it was 2 summers ago and one day it hit 117F here and the air quality was

just non existent, chunky and lacking oxygen. We didn't have any rolling blackouts but my hvac unit died which was really unfortunate timing as you can imagine. I was lucky, my friend's brother's best bud is an hvac guy and he showed up a couple of days later and fixed but in the mean time we went to the movies a bunch of times and the mall just to be out of the heat.

[Oeditpus Rex]

8. July 22, 2006

My thermometer that day; it's in the shade:





There were reports of 115, 116 and even 119 in town.

Around noon that day, a nearby transformer blew and knocked out the power. Without even a goddam fan, the heat was stifling, brutal. About 3 p.m. I couldn't stand it anymore and bailed for my sister and BIL's house in Salinas, where it was a mere 87.

When I got back around 7 p.m. the next day, it must've been 95 inside my house.

[AlCzervik]

14. oh yeah, you're good! My Dad called me and he said "Well at least it's a dry heat"

hey when it's 117 it's like living on the sun and you don't even care what kind of heat it is, dry or wet, it's 117 frigging degrees out!

[Oeditpus Rex]

15. Pour some burning desert sand down his pants

"Oh, Dad, stop screaming. It's a dry heat."

[ColbertWatcher]

18. LOL! n/t

[AlCzervik]

24. seriously, he was here for a week and he couldn't handle the heat.

plus you know what the charmless tract home neighborhoods look like here so when he picks up his rental car and he the mrs. make it my subby he calls me, "Which house is yours?" "The beige one" "They're all beige" "Yah i know, good luck!"

[ColbertWatcher]

16. I remember when it got to 122 in Vegas one year.

Not the kind of thing they'd like advertised, but there it is.

[AlCzervik]

25. yup, definitely not on the brochure.

[Skittles]

4. I live in Texas

'nuff said

[ColbertWatcher]

6. I feel bad for you, but I was asking about heat wave stories. n/t

[Skittles]

17. it's been 98, 101, a few weeks now

and will stay there probably for another three months - that's a heat wave

[ColbertWatcher]

19. If it stays that way, that's what it's supposed to be normally...

...if it spikes, that's what might be considered a "heat wave".

Regardless, stay cool.

[Skittles]

20. it feels different to me the last couple summers

just very, very bad

[ColbertWatcher]

27. I hope it's not too bad.

Let's hope it's only a feeling and not the real thing.

[AlCzervik]

10. i'll be there in July, i'm kind of dreading the humidity.

i lived there for 3 years but that little fact totally escaped me when i bought my plane tickets.

[fed-up]

13. my son is going to visit his uncle in Austin next week-he will learn humidity/humility nt

[msongs]

5. 115 in riverside today. my swimming pool and I are loving it for a few days nt

[Bobbieo]

12. 116 degrees in Yuma - I love it when it gets down to 85 at night.

Can sleep with an open door and window.

[shanti]

35. when it's that hot

your pool isn't cool either! my cousin, who used to live in phoenix, told me that their neighborhood would have "ice parties" when everyone in the neighborhood would bring a block of ice and throw it into one of the families' pools so they could be comfortable!

[LeftyMom]

7. Heatwave? It was only 103 today! /Sacramento native

[lordsummerisle]

9. It was so hot at Lou Dobbs' house...

that he actually hired 3 illegals to keep him cool with their leaf-blowers...

(OK, I stole that from Jay Leno)

[Champion Jack]

21. It was miserable here

about 78 most of the day and then it rained for about 30 minutes around 7 pm.
Does that suck or what?

[ColbertWatcher]

28. I don't know; I think I could go for some rain right now. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Ah walking from one end of the parking lot today to the other

I broke into a severe sweat...

Lord I just came out of the shower!

[dysfunctional press]

23. a couple years after i got out of high school, a girl from our class went missing during a heat wave

she had been a waitress at a truck stop along the interstate, a little northwest of chicago. a truckdriver from indiana also went missing at the same time- although his rig was still parked at the truck stop, her car was missing. a search entailed, while temperatures were in the 100's for almost two weeks straight...about 10 days after they disappeared, they were found- in her car, along the back of a cornfield, dead. they had gone to do what people do, and it being so hot- they left the car running to have the a/c...what they weren't aware of was the exhaust leak in her car.

i've always wondered what the smell must have been like when they finally opened that car.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. It is a good thing you are only wondering what it smelled like

but that reminded me of the three scouts who were lost in desert country near Tijuana... it took us all day and part of the night

IN this case though the ending was a happy one... except for some severe dehydration... they were fine

And trecking around in 100 degree heat with a full rescue pack ain't fun either

We had a long talk with the kids after the fact... as well as parents

And I am glad we had a long talk and not a body recovery

[Blue_In_AK]

29. No heat wave here.

We're having a very cold spring/summer so far, generally running about two-three weeks behind schedule. I wish I could ship some of our mid-50s down to you sweltering people.

[JI7]

39. what is the warmest/hottest it gets there ?

we would consider anything in 50s to be freezing.

[Blue_In_AK]

41. Usually, we're in the upper 60s by now.

The warmest it gets here in Anchorage during the summer is low 70s, sometimes a bit warmer, but very rarely above 80. Usually it's around 65. Winter averages are in the teens, as low as -25 sometimes, sometimes thawing to mid-40s.

Interior Alaska is warmer in the summer and colder in the winter.

[uppityperson]

30. It's summer, I have shorts on, and a flannel shirt. Am still cold.

grrrrrrrrrrrrr. It has been a cool spring here in the pacific northwet, now a cool first day of summer but damn it! I'm WEARING shorts. Need to go find my sheepskin slippers and a blanket.

[shanti]

36. summer in the NW

lasts about a month! i used to live in olympia/tacoma for awhile in the late 70's and remember it fondly :hi:

[Blue_In_AK]

42. Uppity, if you saw my post above yours,

I can relate. It's very nippy here, too.

[silverojo]

31. I lived in Arizona for over 20 years

I've had heat-related illness, but it got to the point where I could recognize it coming, and treat it before I wound up in ER.

Our biggest heat wave was in 1990, when it hit an all-time high of 122 degrees. It was around 120 for much of that week. Couldn't touch anything outdoors, without getting burned. The overnight lows were in the 90's.

You pretty much can't have rolling black/brownouts in AZ, because people would die. What the power companies do is ask people to use as little electricity as possible during peak hours, when A/C's were running full blast, non-stop. Supermarkets turned down their lights and turned up their thermostats. It was great, how people cooperated, so nobody suffered from a lack of power.

[ColbertWatcher]

37. Don't forget the year CA had those rolling black/brownouts...

...was the Year of Enron.

[shanti]

32. it was 102 degrees in sacramento today

needless to say, i didn't go anywhere! it always gets hot here in the summer, but this feels like a heatwave to me..heatstroke is nothing to play with. i've had it about 3 times in my life, two times at reggae festivals, all of them "having fun" - *shuddering*

HYDRATE, PEOPLE!

[EFerrari]

33. I was in Santa Monica that summer and remember

that the whole town felt like a haunted house in the middle of the day -- you never knew what to expect.

It's been lovely up here at Ocean Beach even if I feel a little guilty enjoying it while others of you are getting too much heat.

[kestrel91316]

40. This has been a nasty one, as far as these things go.

I had to shut my vet hospital down for two days because a power surge/failure knocked out my AC. Fortunately the AC guy came at noon today and easily fixed the problem. Unfortunately, now my CAR has a major problem (probably precipitated by age combined with 110+ heat for nearly a week). So I think I will play it safe and have it towed to my mechanic tomorrow for him to work on Monday.

Oy. Hope it's just a cheap band-aid fix so I don't have to spend my proposed down payment on a new car on repairs instead........

On a positive note, my two clinic mascots have been at home with me for 36 hours and they get along fine with my home cat. It's like they have always known each other, lol. Just a few minutes of sniffing and being a little nervous, is all. I think everybody's smells are all familiar to everybody else.

Also, it was REALLY easy to defrost the freezer at work yesterday. It was over 90 in the place.

[pink-o]

45. Twenty years ago--1988--I spent the summer in Redding, California

...it got so hot, one day we almost beat the record GLOBAL temp--I think it was 120, but Bahrain was 124.

Hot, horrible and redneck--not a place for me!

But you expect heat in Redding: In 2003 I was in England and Northern France, and it was almost 100 degrees! Nobody there has A/C or any kind of coolant for their homes, cuz it's always rainy and cold no matter what time of year. When I lived in London, we thought it was hot when it got up to 75! Many people got sick or died from the heat in 2003--and luckily, it hasn't repeated those temps in the last 5 years.