How do you guys cope ??

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

There are hot times here in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic where it reaches 100' and 83% humidity. When it gets that hot it is simply no fun outdoors. However, there are people who have worked up to those temps and are comfortable. I get up in the South, on the west slopes of the Great Smoky Mountains, where summers were easily in the 90s to near 100' with high humidity. At night we opened all the windows and blew fans on ourselves. We were well acquainted with the term, "the fever heat of summer." As a young man I did farm work, framed houses, and worked as a lumberjack in that weather. There is no way I could do it now.

I can't help but wonder what the English colonists who settled Jamestown, the first successful English settlement in the New World, were thinking. They chose perhaps the hottest, most humid location along the James River to settle in their woolen clothing. When they wanted a colonial capital, the lunatics moved seven miles inland to the center of the Peninsula and built Williamsburg on a spot that runs 5-10' hotter!

Bob

Bob, clearly a big fail for their not using the Ventusky site or app or being cheapskates over ad-free mode. They could have headed off so many more problems if they were more in tune with prevailing winds as they ventured south or north.

Originally Posted by Murphy Slaw

I did demolition work in Lake Charles, Louisiana for a living when I was younger. The humidity capital of the World.

I did it because I needed to eat several times a day and had to pay rent.

You made me remember pouring aluminum ingots from the furnace and the worst moments of trash hauling plus assigned to assist the vet with autopsies at a turkey farm. We get super hot with humidity and freeze in winter.

More to topic and with sincere empathy, it has looked like places not so used to the heat some of us know are getting it. Even being used to it there are still problems. I hope people really suffering will do alright.

For my point on simple fitness, that is not so much relief but it is being better able to handle it. My nephew who's had most of his medical career in or near emergency rooms or trauma center says basic fitness and watching your weight appropriate for your age is one of the most important things people can do to help folks like him help us when we have to see them. An ER nurse friend echos that.

[jpd]

Just south of Sacramento. Ca. has become a valley of dry, parched patches of over heated concrete with a water table that in many agricultural towns has dissipated. Scary enough on its own, yet cities are continuing to build homes and warehousing that will evaporate the remaining water tables. This is nuts.

[Silly Moustache]

Originally Posted by rmp

Silly

We pretty much lived with the A/Cs running for a few weeks solid.

it was brutal but we had a way out.

I understand that you guys do not have the A/C option in many homes, I don't know how you are making it thru.

Today it's 20+ degrees cooler here (I'm in the Boston Area)

a much awaited relief from the heat

Hi, no A/C is not customarily used in the UK - (edit: not in private homes! Large stores and office do tend to have it).
The priorities for most home owners is wall and roof insulation and double or even triple glazed windows. Our heating is gas fired hot water into radiators.

Last year my energy bills were £92 ($112usd) a month and I was three months in credit when the suppliers went broke.

Now it is £218 per month ($265) and we are being told to expect £300-£330 ($365-$400) per month come the winter, plus inflation going to 13%.

This of course is largely about Russia but not entirely.

I fear that 2023 in the UK is going to get ugly.

[Glennwillow]

I am very sorry about the heat there in the UK, Silly. That has to be very tough on you.

My wife and I have lived in a bunch of hot places in the USA, including Dallas, TX. My wife, in particular, had real trouble with the heat. We were very glad to move to the Pacific Northwest where the breezes off the Pacific generally keep us cooler, but with the changes in the climate, we are also getting some much hotter weather on occasion.

We cope, when it gets really hot, by turning on the air conditioning cycle on our heat pump. I know that not everyone has this option, so we feel very fortunate. We have had to turn on the AC several times this summer, but only when the heat gets extreme.

Best of luck, Andy. I hope things get better soon for you and rest of Europe.

- Glenn

[b1j]

Since 2016 we’ve lived in the first inland country from the coast in the Bay Area, where we have the famous sun but no ocean cooling. While this summer has been eerily cool, in most of those years we’ve pegged 107°F a few times every summer. It’s the first Bay Area house I’ve had with A/C, so that’s a major relief. But the real story is that the house came with a small pool; we call it the adult kiddie pool because it take me one or two strokes end to end. But it’s water, and that has made all the difference. On many days I jump in four or five different times. You cool off when you get out.

Before this, my rented house on the Peninsula had a dark, uninsulated wall facing west. In fact, nothing seemed to be insulated. On most summer afternoons the inside temperature would go to 95° and stay there well into the night. It was intolerable. I would fill the tub with cold water and submerge until my skin temperature would get cool. I found myself doing this several times a day, so I took to leaving the tub filled.

The common thread is having water steps away from the misery.

[Bob from Brooklyn]

I've been in the basement with the a/c on surfing AGF for about a month now.

[hubcapsc]

In June some of us rode our motorcycles on a convoluted path to
Billings Montana... from the US east coast. It was 100F + every day
on the way home. In South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas the wind
was crazy... I don't know if it is like that out there all the time or what.

Quite an adventure, though ...



-Mike "never pass up a gas station out there..."

[RJVB]

Originally Posted by TheGITM

The Farmer's Almanac released their US forecast for 2023 and where I am in the Midwest (Kansas City area) they are predicting glacier-like weather conditions. They are saying we could go to -40 (which is the same whether F or C).

Well, that's a bit extreme, but I vastly prefer cold over heat. Putting on an extra layer of clothes is always an option, and with proper insulation in the house it shouldn't be that expensive to heat to 18 or-so Celsius (17 is fine if you're active). In fact,it appears that keeping your feet warm is the crucial trick; if they are warm enough your body accepts a lot more.
That kind of provides a good argument for floor-heating.

Heat pumps are all the rage here nowadays, but probably mostly so because you can get quite a bit of financial aides if you convert an existing polluting heating system (many people here still use fuel). Thing is
- over half of France is considered inappropriate for heat-pump use because it gets too cold in winter
- subsidies only exist for air-water heat pumps ... which AFAIK don't have the airco function.

[RJVB]

Originally Posted by hubcapsc

In June some of us rode our motorcycles on a convoluted path to
Billings Montana... from the US east coast. It was 100F + every day
on the way home.

Heat is actually a big reason why I stopped riding and sold my bike. On 30+ Celsius days the tarmac temperature must easily get in the mid 40s, which means you're riding through a hot air stream of about that temperature. ATGATT is just not doable like that - and without it you are at an even bigger risk of dehydration (and thus black-outs, which still happened to me once, at 70kph on Barcelona's beltway).

[fumei]

Silly, we have the same problem here on the western edge of North America - but north of those normal hot spots of, well, all of the U.S. west coast. Although not of course the actual coast. There it is fine. I remember going from Healdsburg (north of San Francisco) to the coast at Jenner. There was a 50 degree difference! In 30 miles!!

But back to here. Last year in our "heat dome" we had almost 700 people die, yes die, from the heat. Mostly because we do not have A/C here. Maybe newer houses do, but not much else. I don't. It was not good for me. I got very sick.

It is hot again, although not heat dome levels. Still, 18 have died this last week.

Cope? I lie in the tub in cool water. That is about it. I try not to leave the house...at all.

I have definitely and strongly changed as I have aged. I handle the heat much more poorly now.

Heck when I lived in India it was 120 degrees F in the shade. Who knows how hot it was in the sun. It was so hot there were no flies! I did not think that was possible, but it is a thing. It is also why there are very few cats in India. There is absolutely no way I would be able to handle that now. No way.

Of course there was no A/C in India. In fact it was so hot in the hotel rooms (no A/C) that when the power went out (often) we had to sit in the dark. We had candles but they could retain any shape and melted into puddles.

Cope? For me, it is now simply endurance, and water in the tub. And alas, every summer it has become hotter and hotter. Even more of an alas, the changes have greatly affected wildlife. Animals are starving on the Oregon/California coast because most of the aquatic prey have headed north into cooler waters. Years ago it was very rare to see dolphins here. Orcas, sure, but not dolphins. Now they are common. They have followed the prey fish north.

I was talking to a friend who lives in Oxford (UK) in a grubby walk-up. They are dying. It has been brutal.

[Chipotle]

Here in the almost-desert, you can survive without AC by using fans (window or whole-house) to exhaust the day's hot air, and pull in cooler air at night when the low temp is usually ~17C (30F) cooler. Close things up in the morning to "keep your cool" as much as you can until later in the day when the temp starts to drop again.

Except for last night, when we hit a record-high low temp. You just couldn't cool off.

In fact, I've read that the lack of nighttime low temps can be a huge contributor to stress, medical issues and even mortality, moreso than just extreme highs. If you never get a chance to cool down, your body simply doesn't have a chance to recover at all.

[Mandobart]

It's one thing to do a one-off trip to a far away hot spot when you live in a mild, temperate climate. Driving through Death Valley is a lot easier when you know you'll be back home in Astoria Oregon for example.

It's another thing completely to actually live in Death Valley all the time.

My little nevergreen corner of the Pacific Northwest of the US has more in common with Tatooine than Olympia or Seattle (including the Sand People - if you came here you'd see). Just about every day in the past few weeks we topped 100 F. Not unusual for the summertime here.

I cope by taking days off up in the forests and meadows of our volcanic peaks (Mount Adams and Mount Rainier) when I can, and taking advantage of the relative cool in the morning and evening to do outdoor physical work. I don't ride my motorcycle in this weather - it's like commuting inside a pizza oven, and my 37 year old gravity fed, carbuereted air-cooled Harley has taken to vapor-locking when it's over 105 F. So much for the post-apocalyptic fantasy world of Mad Max - those bikes just don't run in the heat. But I still get to cruise through a nuclear waste dump!

Those of you in the rest of the world just recently experiencing the future world I'm in now are at a disadvantage, but you can adapt to it. Lots of cold fluids. Americans drink everything on ice - that helps.

[Cypress Knee]

I spent my childhood days in Louisiana with no air conditioning. When I was young I could take the heat and humidity and cool off with a twelve-inch three speed oscillating fan. (Big Smith I believe).

In my mid sixties now I can take the heat but not the humidity. We live eight miles from the ocean in Southern California, so we are fortunate enough to get sea breezes to cool us down. On really hot days we turn on the A/C, but we have solar panels and produce more energy than we use and the energy company takes our excess production to sell to someone else.

I do not want to move back to the mid-Atlantic, South East, or anywhere within two states of the Mississippi River due to the humidity.

[Shubid]

Originally Posted by RJVB

...you are at an even bigger risk of dehydration (and thus black-outs, which still happened to me once, at 70kph on Barcelona's beltway).

Congrats for still being here

[RJVB]

Originally Posted by Shubid

Congrats for still being here

Yeah, yay, I get to wallow in more post-apocalyptically hot weather
(I actually had just a few bruises and my helmet was barely scratched - might have been worse if I had been conscious and fought the fall).

Originally Posted by Cypress Knee

On really hot days we turn on the A/C, but we have solar panels and produce more energy than we use and the energy company takes our excess production to sell to someone else.

I *was* thinking about that: in desert-like areas you should be able to make at least enough electricity to run an A/C. Making a surplus and selling that off is a nice extra (not sure how things are now but for a long time France obliged citizens to sell all their self-generated electricity to EDF...)
I suppose it's also a frigging big initial investment in the US...

Originally Posted by fumei

But back to here. Last year in our "heat dome" we had almost 700 people die, yes die, from the heat. Mostly because we do not have A/C here. Maybe newer houses do, but not much else. I don't. It was not good for me. I got very sick.

You're not talking about the Bloedel Conservatory, I presume?

I've always associated Vancouver with "clement" temperatures but apparently that's no longer true ... shame!
I got a real reality shock the other day when I was doodling around with Google Maps and noticed a place I'd passed through in March or April '79. Kamloops. Clicked on the "pin" and saw 39°C (about 100F). Whaaat?? The next stop from our trip, Banff, was barely better at 32°C or so. I guess I'll have to cherish those photos and 8mm films of our visit to the glaciers!

Cope? I lie in the tub in cool water. That is about it. I try not to leave the house...at all.

I hope your water is actually cool! Our conducts must run under too many miles of sun-baked tarmac because the water we get is often decidedly NOT cool to the touch.

My partner is Mediterannean and generally very heat resistant. But even she complained yesterday about being confined indoors because it's just too hot outside.

Maybe one day someone will market water-cooling suits that can be hooked up to a close-circuit cooling system (like an air-water heatpump)...


I have definitely and strongly changed as I have aged. I handle the heat much more poorly now.

It is also why there are very few cats in India.

Because there are no flies? Jokes aside, I've always heard our cats descend from Egyptian ancestors and are thus very heat tolerant, so I'm a bit surprised they can't handle Indian weather. Unless it has to do with humidity.
I do notice ours favour the tiled floor over their usual woollen carpets and also don't come sleep with us in summer.