The heat waves this summer over most of the nation are horrific, but worst in the north where such heat isn't normal and electric grids aren't up to handling the extra loads. And when the transformers and feeder lines blow, so do tops and tempers.
We used to stay at Barb's parents' house when we visited in northern Indiana each summer, and bake in the heat waves that came through, even in June. They had no AC till grandpa finally broke down and got a window unit for the living room a few years ago, but it wasn't able to cool or dehumidify the living quarters. Since we slept upstairs, it was so stifling even with window fans that we moved the mattress to the floor, and sometimes just sacked out on the living room carpet to get into the feeble stream of cooled air.
We've travelled in some of the super heat waves that killed several hundred people nationwide over the years, with temps well over 100 or even over 115, all the while praying the car unit wouldn't poop out on us, which it often did on our older vehicles. And this summer's cookers for days or weeks on end have turned St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Dallas and other megacities into griddles with no escape.
We've come into Las Vegas in 120 degree heat and abandoned our VW camper for the only night in an AC''d motel. We've camped in Tennessee in 108 degrees and spent nearly the whole day in the pool. But it's always worst where these kinds of conditions are not normal, where tenements are without air conditioning and where people uncap the hydrants to get into a spritz of relief.
That's why I can't complain about living in good old South Florida, where the rest of the country assumes we'd be the worst off in these heat waves but are not. Our daytime highs are in the 90's but not unbearable because there's AC wherever we go, in all our homes and all our cars and trucks, trains and busses. Air conditioning opened the South to development, it is said--made the southern states tolerable places in which to live and work, not just someplace exotic to visit. Because it's the norm to need conditioned air more or less all year long here, we're prepared for it.
But it's not the heat that drives us all to the refuge of our air conditioned spaces; it's the humidity. Ask anyone who has been here in July or August and they will all say the same thing: it's not the heat, it's the humidity. And the humidity is caused by the fact that our state juts out 600 miles into the Atlantic Ocean. Surrounded on three sides by water, we always have that moderating sea/land breeze to keep the air moving slightly and avoid the force-air highs, domes of fire which sit for weeks over other states and literally cook everything: crops, structures, animals and people. But the humidity, which make it impossible to work outside for more than five minutes at a time without coming in with your clothes soaking wet, is the very thing that keeps our temperatures lower and more moderated than the drier, blowtorch heat waves plagueing the rest of the nation. So our humidity is our great blessing in disguise.
I walk each day, usually before nine. But I always come back in with a perspiring brow and spotted tee-shirt. So this morning, in celebration of August, I changed from my usual jeans to shorts. It didn't help that much. I still spot-perspired through. But I was not uncomfortable, and a few minutes in the air conditioned drier air inside made everything hunky-dory. That's why I'll take the humid heat here over the dryer heat waves elsewhere every time. It's hard to believe, but if you want to escape the heat, come to South Florida!
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Growing up on the Texas Gulf Coast, I experienced the constrasts of seasons where air conditioning was just starting to change the way people lived - - and a place where people didn't know how to handle cold weather. Mornings in summer were oftenn sticky, but afternoon sea breezes were fairly relable. Later, when my parents tried to equipment me with cold-weather clothing (it was veery hard to find) for going to college in the frigid northland of Houston, Texas, I soon learned how wise they were. That's because, in summer especially, it seemed that restaurants and stores were in competition to brag about how well they could defy the elements and chill off their buildings. So, in summer, we'd sometimes grab a windbreaker or light wrap for indoor use.
Up until recently, the preferred method for keeping cool in the desert Southwest was evaporative cooling, in which air is blown through water-soaked pads. Not only does this method use far less electricity than refrigerated air, it has the added benefit of increasing humidity. Unfortunately, it has the disadvantage of consuming water -- not a good thing in a place where water is in short supply. So now the powers-that-be in Albuquerque are working hard to persuade people to replace their swamp boxes with refrigerated air.
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