Frazz by Jef Mallett for July 17, 2022

Drink water and take siestas.

Which is why I love where I live in the Philippines: Daytime highs of 75-78F, overnight lows of 55-60F, all year long. Just don’t ask about monsoon season, which is just getting underway.

That is UNTIL the power grid goes down. Though Frazz and Caulfield aren’t in Texas…

Contrived humor

Good time for a swim in the lake.

Hah! Here in Vegas it’s been 107 to 112 for 3 weeks. Lows? In the 90s.

Our night time temperature in Memphis didn’t drop below 80 for about two weeks, with humidity so high the heat index stayed above 100 round the clock. As a runner I found it really rough going. I hate treadmills but may need to change my thinking if this becomes a regular summer thing.

A long way to get nowhere

Oh, my! The heat and humidity in MI.

Oh, the pain and suffering.

Really?

You need to learn to build houses that can stand the heat. Thick walls, good isolation, shutters to close during the day, shaded areas, light coloured ground and roads… And you need to learn to live in non-freezing temperatures.

Today’s strip is a reminder that the kitchen is no place for abstract profundities!

And yet people in Africa and Arabia have been living in hotter conditions than that for thousands of years with no air conditioning.

First he complains about the heat (although everyone in MI has a/c), then he complain about a/c noise… other days he waxes eloquent about how perfect the climate in MI is.

Wet bulb 95.

You’ll wish you had that heat back when you’re freezing your butts off in three layers of clothing from November through April.

The UK’s state meteorological agency tweeted earlier this week:

For the first time temperatures of 40°C have been forecast in the UK and the first ever Red warning for exceptional heat has been issued.

Find out more in our press release— Met Office (@metoffice) July 15, 2022

This reminds me of last summer, in which the 2021 Western North America heat wave broke the all-time heat record in Canada with a temp of 49.6 °C (121.3 °F), killed thousands of people, and increased the all-time record high in my own neighborhood by 14°F.

The obvious response to events like these are millions of people buying air conditioners who never had to buy them before, which will dramatically increase the power demand when the next heat waves occur, which will cause blackouts, which will cause many more deaths.

Check on your neighbors during heat waves, especially the elderly. Heat exhaustion, which causes confusion and disorientation, is a killer that silences its victims.

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Blacktop streets and roads do a lot in keeping it hotter at night. Some locales are painting their streets white, or in the cases of Phoenix and Palm Springs an light grey. https://www.esinationwide.com/why-are-some-cities-painting-their-roads-white.php

It’s so hot, I’m sweating like a Catholic choirboy tying his shoelaces.

It’s so hot, I went outside for a smoke and the cigarette lit itself.

It’s so hot, my Iceberg lettuce melted.

Projected Chicago weather for this coming week, I believe.

Weather does not have virtues.

Quit carping about the heat and humidity (and turning on your air conditioners/fans) and start nagging Congress – both parties – to take serious action re climate change. It’s already getting to be too late.