Wait, 38 years ago?! But what about Anthropological Global Warming? Should be hotter today.
Make that 28 years ago.
Math is hard.
When we heard that the planes could not take off from Sky Harbor you went outside he was 122 feels like. Not much different than 115, like standing in front of an olpen broiler.
I lived out there 33 years ago. It was like living in an oven. Yeah, it was dry ... but it was still hotter than Hell ... especially in the city.
I liked my time in Tucson in the early 1990s. Don’t think I could live there again. I never used A/C in the cars. Was useless. I had a brand new Mustang at the time, and I took it into the dealer to have it checked. They just laughed. Said it was fine, but couldn’t deal with the heat. Got the windows tinted as dark as I could legally (for my home state of Idaho), and the moon roof completely blacked out, and just dealt with it.
Yes, I remember that day well.
I live in the valley, having moved here in my sixties, and like it better than I anticipated. The dry summer is pretty easy to tolerate. Late April to the end of June it is very low humidity and the night heat does relent to 60 in April to 75+ in June. The 2% to 18% humidity range makes the outdoors tolerable if you protect yourself from the unrelenting sun.
I have been here during the wet summer many years and when the winds out of the south bring the monsoon moisture and the humidity jumps to 30 to 65% it is pretty dang nasty. When it is still a hundred at 10:30 at night, that is oppressive.
I like going to the mail box in February in my Teva sandals. Much of the year I stay in running shorts and a breathable tee shirt. I swim in April and October and anytime in between.
117 down in Tucson that day. going out to the mailbox was like walking in an oven. I’d just started dating my wife. Loooong time passed.
No worries.....AC in the house.....to AC in the car......to AC at the grocery store......to AC in the car......to AC in the house. God bless Mr Carrier!! (the man who invented AC!)
lived through something similar in 1980 Texas, with higher humidity than you get in Az.
here’a a link to news story
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/news/2010/08/06/Dallas-Fort-Worth-heat-wave-of-1868
All temps listed taken at DFW International Airport, the rest of the area was considerably hotter at any given time.
I love how they calculate the temperature. In the shade, on grass and probably with misters (well, that one’s mine). Who walks around in the shade and on grass ALL THE TIME?? How often do you get out of your car in Albertson’s parking lot in the shade and onto grass?
This is a true story. I’m a former Zonie who has moved to Texas. We were in Walmart the other day and the cashier mentioned the hot weather to my wife. The wife agreed and said how humid it was. He replied to her that, yes it was humid but it was a “dry” humidity. The wife looked at me and just rolled her eyes. I was like, “what the....!”
I drove a motorcycle through Death Valley on summer. The temp on the pavement was 122 degrees. Now, that is hot. Dry or wet. It doesn’t matter.
And I rode my mountain bike to work...
Dry heat. Schmry heat.
Whatever.
122° is bad. I’ll grant you that. But 101° in South Texas high humidity heat will put you away just as fast.
Lived in the valley since 95 and until the monsoons and humidity roll in the heat is bearable. When my folks were still alive my Dad loved coming out here in the summer. He would sit out in the heat and love every minute of it. He said his joints felt great. At the time I thought he was nuts but now that I have reached the age of aches and pains, too, I understand!
Twenty years ago the company I worked for had its headquarter in Tempe. Many time during the winter I would be on the phone with someone at corporate and they would gig me by saying “What’s the temperature there? It’s 72 here.” I would reply 10, 20 or whatever it was that day. Then I would say “But it’s a dry cold.”
I don’t care how dry it is, anything over 95 is just plan hot. And anything over 110 is insane.
122° is still 122°, whether or not it is a dry heat. I prefer to be where I am.