I was born in the Texas panhandle and spent a majority of my life in West Texas/Southeastern New Mexico…where it was hot and dry. I never really experienced much humidity - but I’ve experienced extreme temperatures living in Arizona. Since I’ve lived here in North Carolina, the weather hasn’t really been that bad - the summers are actually bearable and the humidity hasn’t been so bad. The other day I was driving into work, and noticed an sign in front of the Cisco Systems building that said “Air Quality Action Day.” I asked about it at work, and apparently it’s a day (or series of days in this case) where they don’t let kids out for recess (or so I’m told) and recommend people stay indoors as much as possible. The North Carolina Division of Air Quality put out the following warning:
THE DIVISION OF AIR QUALITY AT THE NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND NATURAL RESOURCES HAS ISSUED A CODE ORANGE AIR QUALITY ACTION DAY FOR THE TRIANGLE AREA. AN AIR QUALITY ACTION DAY MEANS THAT GROUND LEVEL OZONE CONCENTRATIONS WITHIN THE REGION MAY APPROACH OR EXCEED UNHEALTHY STANDARDS. FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION…PLEASE VISIT THE NORTH CAROLINA DIVISION OF AIR QUALITY WEB SITE AT DAQ.STATE.NC.US/AIRAWARE/FORECAST/.
AN EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING MEANS THAT A PROLONGED PERIOD OF DANGEROUSLY HOT TEMPERATURES WILL OCCUR. THE COMBINATION OF HOT TEMPERATURES AND HIGH HUMIDITY WILL COMBINE TO CREATE A DANGEROUS SITUATION IN WHICH HEAT ILLNESSES ARE LIKELY. DRINK PLENTY OF FLUIDS…STAY IN AN AIR-CONDITIONED ROOM…STAY OUT OF THE SUNSHINE…AND CHECK UP ON RELATIVES AND NEIGHBORS.
This is completely new to me!
Technorati Tags: air quality, ozone, heat, humidity
The smog thing… yuck. The heat thing… people out east and what not are out of their mind… 100 degrees with 80-90% humidity, we call that a typical monsoon day. Hehe. 110 with 75% or more humidity and people here start to complain. I miss the weather back home… hehe
Yeah, no I agree - the Arizona desert is ridiculously hot. But, in reality - there is no humidity…I still say I prefer the heat here over the heat there. I still disagree with Gwansho and the “It’s a dry heat…” thing. When you have months of 100 days in a row, add in the fact that everything’s rocks and cement…it’s miserable.
But, the thing is…we average over 46% humidity in the afternoon any given month of the year and over 78% in the morning. HOWEVER the number of “extreme” temperature days averages around 37 per year…whereas, Tucson averages 143 days.
So, maybe it’s that when those “extreme” temperature days do come around, it’s more of a shock — add in the humidity and that just makes it a bit worse. We don’t get to 115-120, but 103 with the humidity is still not fun to be out in.
OH - one other thing I’ve noticed is that in Tucson, they build houses and buildings to help that. Houses are built, in my experience WAY better there for cooling. I remember my house in Tucson stayed cool - maybe it was better insulated, bigger A/C’s, etc…but here, my AC runs all day long and doesn’t get below 80 degrees inside…it just can’t keep up. A lot of people I’ve talked to experience the same thing.