Posted on 07/21/2011 11:54:04 AM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Unless you live in the lucky part of the continental United States that will not be slammed by a heat wave this week, you've probably encountered what meteorologists are calling the "heat dome."
A claustrophobia-inducing greenhouse of heat and sadness, the "heat dome" is actually a 1 million square-mile high-pressure system hovering over most of the country and pushing temperatures sky-high. Nearly 150 million Americans in 32 states are in the dome, leading to at least 22 deaths around the country as of yesterday, according to CNN. In Oklahoma alone, state medical officials believe 12 people have died from the heat.
Christopher Vaccaro at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tells The Lookout that the United States is facing a unique convergence of heat-stoking forces. The high-pressure system compresses the air--meaning it drives the warm air closer to the ground while heating it up to uncomfortably high temperatures. That compressed, sinking air keeps clouds from forming, giving the sun--which is at its highest angle this time of the year--free rein to do its worst. "Warmer air is thicker than colder air so it's actually a literal dome," Vaccaro explains. The final sweaty blow is that ground winds have consistently been coming from the south, pushing humid tropical air all the way to Northern Midwest states such as Minnesota. The humidity makes the heat even more dangerous, Vaccaro says.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
LMAO!! Haven’t seen that in a while!
When I was a kid this was called “summer”.
That way, they will be able to track the Obama misery index alongside the Obama sadness quotient in broadcast weather reports, in the same way that they parade the rather arbitrary "heat index"...
This is what passes for professional writing these days?
North of Augusta it's much more like West Virginia, and I mean that in a good way.
But of course those were days of superstition and crypto-racism. Since your benighted childhood Humanity has evolved into something nobler and more aware. Now our seasons are called 'Autumn', 'Winter', 'Spring' and 'Man-Made Dome of Ineffable Sadness'.
LOL, nice.
The worst would have been not getting good grades during the year and having to go to the "Man-Made Dome of Ineffable Sadness government run socialist indoctrination center of social justice and gender equality" (or "summer school" for those not sufficiently indoctrinated into cultural marxism).
123 degrees in Council Bluffs IA yesterday? No.
79 degrees in San Diego, for them that’s a heat wave.
Hot and sad, sad and hot. Tomato hornworms, shedding catz ... *drink*.
I was born and raised in the Central Valley of California and used to laugh out loud when folks in the mid west, northeast and south would complain about temperatures nearing 100deg. We get at least 25 days a year of such temperatures.
Then I got sent on a job to Columbus Mississippi in August one year. It was 101deg and 92% humidity. It almost looked foggy the air was so thick. Only cooled to about 85deg in the AM.
I didn't know it was possible for humans to live in such conditions. It totally shut me down. Incapacitated. Hard to breathe.
Phoenix at 118deg is not THAT hot.
I spent my childhood in the back of a car with an AM radio and no a/c.
I’d be willing to bet that the car was well over 100 degrees many summer days as we drove all over on vacation.
I had no idea that I was an “at-risk” child with a rough upbringing until just now.
I live in eastern North Carolina. This morning it was 84° before 8 AM. The humidity in the evenings has been upwards of 70% and it’s been brutal.
It isn’t as bad as 92%, but you still almost feel like you’re walking in a steam bath. I grew up around here and the extreme humidity really bothered my asthma when I was a kid. Luckily I have mostly outgrown that.
This is no hotter than when I lived in Virginia in the early 1990s. What they call a heat-wave, I call July.
The media isn’t doing their job unless they’re out “proving” that global warming is real.
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