Whose hot now?

xtsho

Well-Known Member
I read an article in the Washington Post about how bad it was in England and Europe with England set to break an all time high temp record. They are forecasting 104 in the next day or two and said they're having to lay sand down on some roads to prevent the tar from melting. Then I thought about Oklahoma and how they're hitting 110 and it's been weeks above 100. I guess it comes down to the engineering and how old a lot of the structures are over there. Talking about deaths in the thousands potentially across Spain and France because of the lack of AC. So as bad as it is over here, at least we're used to it for the most part. I spent a couple trips out to the Mojave desert at Ft. Irwin, CA and 119 is the hottest I've ever seen. Even the coyotes were looking for AC, coming into the damn tents during the day to try and cool off.
The thing about AC is that some areas experiencing the extreme heat that they normally don't have is that many systems are not rated for that kind of heat. Last summer when we hit 116°F here in Portland many systems couldn't keep up. People here didn't plan on that kind of heat so there was no reason to spend money on systems rated for temps that high. Then when they stopped working all of the HVAC techs were completely overwhelmed with calls. And then there was nothing the techs could do because the systems just stopped working. The only solution is to buy bigger units but that can be expensive especially for commercial uses. And you are not getting those installed overnight. The lady works at a bakery and the frosting was melting on the cakes while the air conditioning couldn't keep up. I think the technician actually put a sprinkler on the roof of their building and said there was nothing else he could do.

Thankfully we didn't have a repeat of last summer here. We have some warm days but nothing too bad and it does cool down at night. I've avoided using the air conditioning for the most part by having windows open and cooling down the house at night. I then seal it up and it stays cool until late afternoon. If I see the dogs panting I put them in the bedroom with the air conditioning.

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FirstCavApache64

Well-Known Member
It sure seems to be getting worse as time goes on. We used to get a lot more snow in the winter and a 100 degree day was a real rarity. Now they're part of every summer. You're dead on about needing to upgrade systems with the changing climate though and how expensive it is. We have a couple days each summer that our old unit just can't keep up with, but it's 6-8K to upgrade to a bigger one and until this one dies I can live with a few warm days a year.
 

PioneerValleyOG

Well-Known Member
114 tomorrow....Oklahoma.

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I was raised in Tulsa, and I remember it saying 120F at the bank when I was little. We had bikes with wide back tires, and the tar would bubble up in the road, from half orange to grapefruit size, sometimes walnut sized, but they'd all Pop! And POP was what we drank. When I came to Massachestts around age 9, my accent was soooo Tulsa.
 

paintnick

Well-Known Member
The only consolation to the heat in our area of the PNW is that the humidity stays around 30-35%. We’ve had a great summer so far, only one three day heat wave, but next week doesn’t look fun!
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Absolutely nailed it the humidity is the saving grace for our weather in the pnw. I think it finally drops bellow 100 starting tomorrow by my in Oregon. Hope you get some cooler days by you petert
 
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