Nearly a month of 110 or more in Phoenix

[kurth]

Nearly a month of 110 or more in Phoenix
By AMANDA LEE MYERS, Associated Press Writer

People here expect it to be hot, but they sure wouldn't mind a cool spell. You know, maybe 107 or so. Phoenix reached a shoe-melting, spirit-crushing milestone Wednesday: 29 days of temperatures 110 degrees or higher in a single year. The previous record of 28 days was set in 1970 and matched in 2002, according to the National Weather Service.

The streak is enough to vaporize any humor left in the phrase "It's a dry heat." The average number of days 110 or higher in a given year is 10. "It's a dry heat because we're in a desert!" Ollie Lewis said as she walked to a bus stop in downtown Phoenix. Austin Jamison, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Phoenix, said an oven produces dry heat, too. "You can put your head in the oven, but that's not comfortable."

The temperature hit 113 degrees Wednesday afternoon, matching the record high for Aug. 29 set in 1948 and 1981, Jamison said. The weather service is forecasting temperatures of 105 degrees for the rest of the week. The National Weather Service says urbanization and global climate change could be contributing factors to the heat, but Phoenix has not come close this year to its all-time high of 122 degrees, set in 1990. The hottest day of 2007 was July 4, when the mercury hit 116 degrees.

Still, the string of broiling days was tough to deal with, even for lifelong Phoenix residents like Martin Milner, a construction worker who took a break under a rare shade tree. "People say you'll get used to it, but you never get used to it," said Milner, who wore a bandanna under his black hard hat to stop the sweat from running down his face. "Every year it gets harder and harder and harder. This year it's just skyrocketed." Marcia Reid, who moved to Phoenix from New York City five months ago, said the heat doesn't bother her. "I lived in New York for so long, I got tired of the cold," she said. "I like it here. It's a dry heat."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070830/ap_on_re_us/record_hot_phoenix;_ylt=App.DnwMcRyua2CybcGPHkqs0NUE

[Lex1775]

1. Yep, living out here in the PHX sucks the big one right now...

I had a full house a week ago when my wife's best friend, husband and three daughters knocked on our door saying that their A/C was on the fritz. The temp inside their home at 10:15pm was 99 degrees.

It probably doesn't help that the city has exploded in size either. Lots of new blacktop and roofs to absorb solar radiation.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. I was there for the 1989 heat wave

8 months pregnant with nothing but a swamp cooler (which of course did nothing that time of year)

A few years later the gangs and mutating cockroaches drove me out. People are not meant to live in that desert, imho.

edit: typo

[enlightenment]

4. My sympathies

Living in Las Vegas, where everything is concrete and building, I appreciate how hot it actually feels, as opposed to the temperature. Today our high was presumably 107 (taken in the shade somewhere near McCarren, I think), but the thermometer outside my door read 113 (and muggy this week, too. ick.)

Last year's recorded 116 read 125 in my front yard.

I hope the heat breaks for you soon. Hang in there!

[Systematic Chaos]

5. Fellow Las Vegan here. Thank goodness for one thing though.

The last two years have not produced anything to match the week in 2005 where every day was 116+ and three days in a row at the lying-ass airport were 119. I bet it was 130 at Sam's town those days. :puke:

[madrchsod]

3. it`s a desert and it gets very hot and very dry.

that could be why the ancients had a hard time living there without an adequate water supply. unless the climate changes in the west cities like phoenix will become to costly to maintain.

[kestrel91316]

15. In Vegas they are dealing with that little problem by going north

and STEALING the aquifer under White Pine County and half of western Utah.

IMHO Vegas and other furnace-belt cities need to just say no to more McMansions.

[Warpy]

6. It's been bad here in NM, too

and our highs have been averaging 10 above normal as that damn tropical storm that went through Texas cut off the monsoons.

The monsoons seem to have started again, though. Maybe they'll save Arizona, too.

[unhappycamper]

7. I think we've gotten (maybe) to 90 once or twice in the last month up heah in Boston

We usually get about a week of 95+ - ain't seen that yet. . . Very unusual weather.

[Hope springs eternal]

8. I don't mean to be an ass...

But, umm, Arizona is high desert. You're very presence there is a massive drain on resources.

[tinrobot]

9. Phoenix has gotten way too big.

I spent 25 years in Phoenix. My grandfather moved there in the late 1950's because, back than, the air quality was so good. I don't think you could say the same today.

The reason it gets so hot there is because there's too many people, too much concrete, too many heat-spewing cars and air conditioners. If you go 20 miles out of the city into the Sonoran desert, the temperature will drop at least 10 degrees. Bottom line is that there's way too many people in Phoenix.

[phantom power]

10. Air quality is now a real problem here. It's a health hazard, not a benefit.

[Javaman]

11. Having had the pleasure of being in death valley in the middle of August

some years ago.

I can tell you this. There is a giant difference in how the temp feels when it's 119 than when it's 113 and a giant difference from when it's 113 than when it's 107.

I had the most unfortunate luck of being there when they equaled their all time high of 125. After 119, it's just plane fucking insane hot.

[phantom power]

12. When the high is 101, it's >= 100 for about an hour of the day. When the high is 111...

it's >= 100 for 10 hours of the day. A sort of "area under the curve" thing.

[enlightenment]

13. Don't understand your equation

which is hardly surprising. I chose history to avoid maths. :)

I'll say just one thing more about it. When you live in a place where 101 feels cool, you're living in a hot place.

And to the folks up thread who kind of suggested that people who live in high desert cities like Phoenix somehow deserve to suffer because they (and their ilk) created the problem by overcrowding and overbuilding . . . although I agree that humans don't do as well as desert tortoises in this environment, unless you're doing a Thoreau out by Walden Pond the criticism is a bit pot and kettle, don't you think? We all have an impact of our environment. jmho

[phantom power]

14. It's mostly an anecdotal observation.

It's just that if you take the (arbitrary) threshold of "hotter than 100," a day when the high is 111F has about 10 hours of temps hotter than 100. In other words, it feels hot for a heck of a lot of the day. At any rate, there's a big difference between a high of 100F and a high of 110F. Of course, if you are used to highs in the 70s, it's all just "fucking hot" regardless. I remember that feeling well, when I first moved down here.

I'm not sure the 100F threshold is magic, except maybe that it is when the air temperature starts to really exceed body temperature.

[enlightenment]

19. Ah! Okay. Got it, more or less!! :)

I tend to go with hot, really hot, "can't stand it" hot, TOO hot, unbelievably hot, and "just kill me now" hot. There are sub-headings, of course - convection oven, broiler, microwave, surface of the sun. That takes care of about 9 months of the year.

I have a low average body temp (96.4 usually) so hot seems to start a bit lower on the scale for me. :(

[kestrel91316]

16. We had 113 here today in Los Angeles. We had 119 here one day

in July 2006. I can't personally tell the difference at that point. They are both lethal temps.

[depakid]

17. Imagine Phoenix without cheap air conditioning...

Swamp coolers are great- but at 113, they aren't going to hack it....

[phantom power]

18. The phrase "ghost town" comes to mind.

[Nihil]

20. Where does Phoenix get its power from?

Does it have a local power station (or two) or is it cabled across?

[tinrobot]

22. Nuclear, Coal, Hydroelectric

There's a nuclear power plant west of the city, Salt River Project has lots of dams, and there's a few other power plants, including one just east of Arizona State. I think they're coal, but they might be natural gas. There's also a big coal plant way up north near Four Corners, I'm not sure if that feeds Phoenix or not.

[Nihil]

23. Thanks.

I was just thinking that if it was a single type (e.g., coal) or if most
of it was brought in from a significant distance then there would be a
bit of a risk ...
:hi:

[semillama]

21. Seems to me that human desert dwellers need to take a cue from the non-human ones

and move underground.

Imagine it: suburbs that when viewed from the air, resemble a series of bumps on the landscape instead of a cookie cutter townscape.

A nice, dry, cool, energy efficient hobbit hole for everyone!