It's hot!

Wednesday, 2:01 pm

By Kate

Jul

20

2005

The last three days have been the sort of days when I would have relished having a swimming pool in the back yard. With ice cubes in it. Yesterday our temps were in the upper 90s with a heat index peaking at 112°. Much like the rest of the country, apparently. Outside work was out of the question. The humidity was so high that walking out the door was like walking into a sauna. My little window air conditioning unit cranked out cool air by the bucketsful, but could hardly keep up with the heat. Despite registering in the mid-80s inside, it felt like a cool spring breeze by comparison. Whenever I got too hot in the house, I went outside for a few minutes. Coming back inside felt wonderful!

Today isn’t much better. So I packed all my errands into one long outing. The car’s air conditioner works better than the one in the house. And then I spent a long and leisurely couple of hours grocery shopping. By the time I was finished in there, I was so cold that it took a half an hour to thaw out. The grocery store evidently can’t regulate its air conditioning. It’s always freezing in there. Even on cooler days their air conditioning is set to arctic blast.

While I was out and about, the news on the radio told me that yesterday was the single highest peak day for electricity consumption this state has ever seen. But, the announcer said, there is no danger of overloading the grid. They were ready for it. Today’s use is expected to be nearly as high and there’s no problem, the authorities tell us. The good thing about that is fewer people will perish from the heat. The bad thing, of course, is the need for so much power generation. These heat waves are brutal and they are becoming more and more frequent.

A couple of hours ago, nature came to our rescue, for those of us along the coast. The winds changed direction and brought cool air off the ocean. Within a matter of moments, the temperature dropped 10°. While it’s not exactly cool out there, it’s a much more bearable 86°, with about half the humidity of this morning. I’d share it, if I could. Feels so good!