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Group Writing: The Curse of Summer Heat
Few people I know like the heat of a Florida summer. In fact, if people say they enjoy it, we assume they have a screw loose. Part of the culture requires that you complain about the heat at least once in a conversation. And when summer starts early, as it seems to have this year (today it will be 98 degrees), the moaning and groaning are cacophonous.
So, I commiserate with others on the weather; it’s always a good conversation opener. When I meet someone new or am not feeling fully awake, the weather is always a reliable topic. And something we can all agree on.
But quite honestly, I’ve come to realize that commenting on the weather for me is just a lazy habit. For example, I have never paid a lot of attention to the weather when we have made decisions about where we will live. We’ve lived in Massachusetts (humid summers, nasty nor’easters), Colorado (where in the 1980’s we were snowed in for several days), California (which has many more problems that negate the mild weather), and now Florida, the lightning capital of the US (with its humidity and thunderstorms). My husband hates the cold, so no matter how hot it gets, he rarely complains. He knows when he has a good thing.
I didn’t mind the cold wherever we live, just the icy streets after a freezing rain. And I don’t mind the heat, I just take my walks early in the morning. What I’ve learned is that there are many things more important than nasty weather, hot or cold. And you can always count on the weather changing.
Instead of focusing only on the outer world, I’ve learned to appreciate the inner life, where the weather can’t touch me. In here, I can find stillness beyond my emotional storms. I can find insight where the outside world doesn’t reach me. I can find truth when the world is busy fighting evil.
From day-to-day, with our prediction tools, we never know for sure what the weather will be like.
But today, in here, the weather is just fine.
Published in Group Writing
Susie,
A little advice for you.
Regards,
Jim
In my next life, I’d like to be a meteorologist. Other than politics, I can’t think of a calling where a person can be so reliably wrong without consequence.
I grew up just South of the Sahara, and it was sometimes terribly hot, but never humid. It’s the humidity that does me in. My mother was the same way, which is why we transplanted ourselves to Maritime Canada from the day after school got out in June until the day before it started in September. I’ll take cold winters over muggy summers any day (although that doesn’t stop me griping about them, more so as I get older).
My dear @jamesgawron, thank you! So are you a mad dog or Englishman? Or a typical Floridian, hiding in your hut?
I have been fascinated by the weather, ever since our first move from CA to MA. But especially when we moved to CO. The weather fronts in the winter were amazing, and watching the hail in summer beat our flowers nearly to death–well, that was less fun. Yes, humidity can be tough, but strangely it bothers me less now than it used to, at least here in FL.
Not an Englishman.
Susie & She,
I am an honorary Englishman. Always wear a wide brim hat and long sleeves when you are out in the Florida noonday sun. Otherwise, the UV will burn your toast.
Regards,
Jim
Having grown up in the South, I know how to handle the heat – stay out of it or jump in the pool. So Florida weather wasn’t much of a challenge.
The thing that initially really got up my nose when we moved here was the snowbirds’ attitudes.
“Do you live here all year?” they would ask. “Oh my goodness, I don’t see how you can stay here in the summer. We have to go back north before it gets hot. I couldn’t survive a summer here.” The subtext here being, “Oh you poor thing. So sad that you can’t afford two homes.”
Well, actually we probably could, but we like to travel abroad, support our church, give to our favorite causes, splurge when we get the urge, etc. And my Scottish ancestors’ genes won’t allow me to feel comfortable paying 2 sets of taxes, insurance, utilities, maintenance, etc., etc. Of course, if you were to explain all that, it would be pointless. So I just say, “Oh, we love it!”
Thanks, @eb! I think that most of the time when they go “home” for the summer, the temperature is worse there than here! Well, that may not be true this year . . . ;-)
I lived in Orlando, Florida for six months over the summer way back in 1978 (May to November). I thoroughly enjoyed the weather, and I remember being able to set my watch by when the afternoon thunderstorms would appear and wreak havoc for about fifteen minutes . . .
Indeed. It’s raining angels and demons out there if one believes the headlines.
I live in Mississippi, and many years ago I had a boss that would say, “You should never complain about the heat, it keeps the Yankees from staying.”
“Wreak” havoc.
Sorry, I usually don’t get this picky, but it’s the third time today I’ve seen it somewhere.
Yeah, seeing that sort of thing really reeks.
I’ve spent most of my life bouncing back and forth between the most humid cities in America: Houston and Mobile. Over 90% is common. It was 99 degrees here the other day. In full sun, it felt just like a steam room. You can feel the air pushing against you.
I always wondered how that compares to equatorial areas where temperatures can exceed 120 F.
Ironically, dehydration is quicker in humid climates because high humidity frustrates the body’s ability to cool itself by sweating. I thought dry heats would be worse.
Don’t loose your sense of humor. ;)
I don’t understand the science behind that statement, but intuitively, it seems to be true. Getting comfortably cool in high humidity is very difficult. I do know that dogs don’t sweat, except in a few areas like nose and paws, and that they’re very prone to heatstroke as a result. Perhaps it’s like that.
It’s tougher for sweat to evaporate in humid conditions because the air is already close to saturated. Evaporation pulls in heat from the surroundings, thus cooling everything else in the vicinity.
We used to drape a damp towel over the cooler when we went camping so that the ice inside would last longer. When making hay, my cousins and I would pull some leaves off of the trees at the edges of the field and tuck them into our hats for the same effect.
I really don’t mind the heat – ever hear of air conditioning? I live in snowbird country also and it’s really nice when they go home.
My major complaint about hot climates – humid or dry – is that businesses and restaurants seem to think they have to set their thermostats to freezing. We stayed in a hotel in Houston last month and even though the temps were only in the 80’s our room temp was set at 67 degrees when we got there. We were able to increase it ourselves but every day the cleaner would set it back down. What’s up with that?
OOPS! I’ll correct it. Thanks!
For a while, I never went anywhere without a shawl. Lately, though, I’ve not needed that. What’s up with that? ;-)
We usually have a couple of brutally hot days here in the San Gabriel Valley in SoCal. We don’t have central air (I keep telling everyone I’m waiting until all the kids are gone – don’t want the little buggers to be too comfortable)
The weather is a subject that is forbidden. Yes, it’s hot. We know it’s hot. Talking about it doesn’t help. I also avoid all weather forecasts when I realized finding out at the end of the day it was 110 degrees was a lot different than knowing in the morning it was going to be 110 degrees.
But I have broken my own rule with one particular heat wave last year. It was 117 degrees on the day we were getting an outdoor venue ready for son #3’s wedding. And 118 degrees on the day of. They got married on the beach (where it was a little cooler) and we were cheek to jowl with hundreds of people who were spending the day there trying to get some relief.
The reception didn’t start until the sun had gone down and it was a lovely evening. But any talk of the wedding always includes the temperature: “118 (redacted)ing degrees!”
It’s 7pm and we are having an evening,raging thunderstorm. Actually the thunder and lightning are modest, but the rain is bass drumming. Did I mention we are having a new roof put on? Fortunately, it is “dried in,” but after waiting for six months to be completed, we’re a bit burnt out. We’re now told possibly finished by Friday, but likely the beginning of next week. Fingers crossed.
Much better to be talking about the weather than to be debating disco music. Don’t you agree? Just ease on over to the monthly theme post and sign up. Because I went there, and you know where I went with Elimination in November.
This is an entry in June’s theme series: Hot Stuff!” We have a lot of open days as the summer season starts. Please stop by and sign up to share your own angle on the topic, however loosely construed.
Texas’ width made things interesting because you can have both the oppressive humidity levels of Houston and the Gulf Coast mixed in with places 500 miles to the west, where humidity the same day might be in the single digit range. So 95 degrees in Midland is far more tolerable than if it’s 95 degrees the same day 500 miles to the southeast.
When we lived in CA, we had what they called “mini-climates”–I think that was the term. So you could have one temperature in one city, and just five miles away, 7-10 degrees difference. On I-5, when I’d return home to San Clemente, the temperature near San Juan Capistrano would drop 10 degrees. We were closer to the ocean, but even so, it was a pretty dramatic change in just a minute or two.
The endless blue skies and beating sun, with no rain for weeks and weeks here in the Panhandle started out nice, but with the rise in temps to nineties (my car read 100F the other day), it was miserable. Then our AC crapped out last Sunday. It was 91F in the house and could not sleep well for 2 nights- even the cat refused to eat….I was watering plants and running irrigation 2x a day – my beautiful promising tomatoes pooped out – except the cherry and grape. The birds were willing to take baths in the hot bird bath water….
Now the heatwave has broken and we have rain and more rain! Yea! We don’t like the cold either – that’s why we left MA, but enough is enough! I predict a brutally hot summer – the global warming thing I believe – in that the sun is getting hotter or the ozone thinner – maybe both! PS I am thankful for AC every day!
Me, too! We have had some heavy downpours, too, and the AC still works, FSC!
While I’m looking forward to youngest daughter’s upcoming wedding, I’m not looking forward to the fact it’s outdoors, in South Carolina, in July, in the afternoon, and there’s no contingency plan for bad weather (think thunderstorm).
OTOH, maybe I’ll be on Cloud Nine and won’t notice a damn thing but the bride (sniff) . . .
Weather conditions are migraine triggers for me. I can’t ignore the weather because it affects me so much. We had a lightning storm yesterday that took branches down. The power company will be cutting branches from our yard for a few days.
It snowed in the mountains here this morning. Canyons have been closed temporarily up north. Just another June day in Utah!