Welcome Back, Hotter
Jul. 12th, 2012 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogBuffalo never got the worst of the worst of the past weeks' oppressive heat and humidity. It has never, ever, topped 100F at the official airport weather station, and at the steamiest, perhaps this time last week, it was low 90s. Those same lakes that dump cold snow on us in the wintertime also carry cooler air across in the summer, so we get a little break there.
Not that it's been fun. Our AC was running continuously for most of the previous three weeks. I'm almost always the first one up, and my benchmark is how the outside air feels when I let a dog out around 5:30 a.m. Usually, it's cooler out there, but even with the AC setting back a little overnight, for most of the past three weeks there was little relief out there, and more often than not it felt cooler, if artificially so, on the inside.
It was supposed to break over the weekend. We were promised a cold front on Saturday morning, with strong storms ushering in somewhat lower temps and humidity. And while that did eventually happen (it was a little better Sunday morning, more so Monday), the "storms" fizzled out about as fast as a San Diego fireworks display. We got perhaps 20 minutes of rain and then it was a smidge cooler.
Yesterday was the first time I'd been out running in close to a month when I didn't turn into a total pigmess within the first ten minutes. We even managed to open windows and turn off the central fan, yet by late afternoon, the temp had crept back up to 80F and we were back in shutdown mode again. This morning, there was no relief at the back door at 5:30, and the AC was cranking away already when I "really" woke up a bit past 8.
The lack of rain is the bigger issue, since AC can counteract the heat and humidity parts. Eleanor is out watering plants every morning, and our lawn, along with just about everyone elses' around here, is a deep shade of brown. Even the birds are pissed off, as the worm pickings are down and we can't fill the birdfeeder when a sprinkler is blasting through it every 20 seconds.
And yet, they say, climate change is a hoax. A hot day doesn't support the theory; a summer this hot, following a winter that mild, with precipitation way below normal in both seasons? Does.
Not that it's been fun. Our AC was running continuously for most of the previous three weeks. I'm almost always the first one up, and my benchmark is how the outside air feels when I let a dog out around 5:30 a.m. Usually, it's cooler out there, but even with the AC setting back a little overnight, for most of the past three weeks there was little relief out there, and more often than not it felt cooler, if artificially so, on the inside.
It was supposed to break over the weekend. We were promised a cold front on Saturday morning, with strong storms ushering in somewhat lower temps and humidity. And while that did eventually happen (it was a little better Sunday morning, more so Monday), the "storms" fizzled out about as fast as a San Diego fireworks display. We got perhaps 20 minutes of rain and then it was a smidge cooler.
Yesterday was the first time I'd been out running in close to a month when I didn't turn into a total pigmess within the first ten minutes. We even managed to open windows and turn off the central fan, yet by late afternoon, the temp had crept back up to 80F and we were back in shutdown mode again. This morning, there was no relief at the back door at 5:30, and the AC was cranking away already when I "really" woke up a bit past 8.
The lack of rain is the bigger issue, since AC can counteract the heat and humidity parts. Eleanor is out watering plants every morning, and our lawn, along with just about everyone elses' around here, is a deep shade of brown. Even the birds are pissed off, as the worm pickings are down and we can't fill the birdfeeder when a sprinkler is blasting through it every 20 seconds.
And yet, they say, climate change is a hoax. A hot day doesn't support the theory; a summer this hot, following a winter that mild, with precipitation way below normal in both seasons? Does.
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Date: 2012-07-12 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-12 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-12 07:27 pm (UTC)