Woe is me.
We are rushing toward that time of year when the daily forecast sounds almost the same every day. Most days, it goes like this:
“Partly sunny and (warm) (hot), humid and hazy with a chance of afternoon and evening thunderstorms.”
…or it may say, “scattered afternoon and evening thunderstorms.”
…or “widely scattered.”
…or, “isolated.”
You get my point.
Sometimes I get so tird of writing such words that I want to pause, have another cup of coffee and a frosted-brown-sugar-cinnamon poptart. (Those are good for the soul but illegal for me except twice a year)
As this summer forces its way in, I am going to try to use some different, but easy-to-understand wording in the forecasts that I do.
Actually, some forecasters do not use any descriptive words with hot or cold. That may say, Sunny today. High 102.
I was very intrigued by an official forecast I saw once from North Dakota in winter. It said, “Fair and warmer tonight. Low 14 below zero.” Everything is relative, they say, may have been 30 below the previous night!
But, my question of the day is, “what is hot and what is warm?”
Since i have been confirmed as the hottest natured guy north of the equator, (except possibly James Spann), 80 is hot to me. 85 is really getting hot and 90 is a scorcher.
But i have to face reality, most people are not like me and they are fortunate.
Little Miss Molly’s majority owner was raised in the heart of the Arizona Desert (Phoenix) and 70 feels cool to her. She and I are about 40 degrees apart on the thermostat.
Back to the subject.
In late spring and summer, I usually say “warm” if the high is going to be in the 80s and I might say “very warm” if it upper 80–especially early in the warm season.
But I switch over to the H word (Hot) if it is going to be 90 or above, and “very hot” from the mid-90s up.
When do you consider it hot?
Another thing that will give you a clear impression of how uncomfortable the day will be. If you wake up and discover that the dew point on a july morning, for example is 61 with a high temperature forecast of 90, that will be a much more bearable day than if the dew point was 72 or 74. That would be a sweltering day when you would perspire all of the coffee and Buffalo Rock out of your system.
One final personal note: If we did not have to be concerned about crops, lawns, you name it, and I could dictate what the high and low would be EVERY day, I would choose:
36/66
I bet that does not agree with you!
