Following all the storms and heat we’ve had the past few weeks, the weather has finally settled into something resembling mid-Spring weather. Days in the 50s or 60s and nights in the 40s, good breezes, occasional rain, and the recent addition to “normal” Spring weather: random heat spikes and intense blocks of bad weather coasting aorund the edges of said heat spikes. It has been nice to be able to open the windows and leave them open rather than constantly run the AC (though that might not last much longer as Spring fully arrives and delivers a metric ton of pollen into the air around me), so I’ve been trying to make the most of it while it lasts. There’s no telling when it will shift back to warm days and stay there until the fall, so I am doing my best to appreciate what I’m getting between needing to adjust how open my windows are so it doesn’t get too cold or the rain doesn’t pour in my windows. For Whatever reason, I’ve been blessed with breezes that actually enter my apartment, which is great until it starts to rain the the gusts of the storm whip it into my apartment to soak my curtains or collect on my kitchen floor. But it’s manageable and far more pleasant an experience than another snowstorm or heatwave. At least there’s been very little lightning and wind as a part of the rain we’ve had so I don’t need to worry about losing power or the potential for tornadoes.
Continue readingHeat Wave
Three Separate Heatwaves So Far This Summer
I’m writing this post as the tail-end of the latest heatwave slowly dwindles. Along with the cooler air and chance for storms this shift in temperature is bringing, we’re also getting a nasty shift in air-quality. All the cold air coming from up north is still filled with wildfire smoke, after all. Which means we’re all basically stuck in a position of “horrible heat” or “smoke-filled air” as the old, stable, warm-but-not-too-hot weather of post summers gets blown to and fro by the more extreme conditions to the north and south. It is just over a month into Summer and we’ve had three heatwaves in that time alone. I’m sure we had more over the course of the year, but they didn’t really register the same way these ones did since all they brought were unseasonably warm temperatures (like that time we had temperatures in the 70s back in February) and not actual heat advisories like the summer ones always deliver. I wish I could reliably say that at least this is it for the next ten days based on the forecast, but even tomnorrow’s forecast is no longer an acurrate prediction I can rely on [turns out that even this morning’s prediction for today was off by almost ten degrees and it looks like this week’s heat is going already be more intense than predicted over the weekend]. Today was supposed to be cool and stormy, but instead we’ve just drawn out the dwindling temperatures from the past two days to create a humid swamp of an atmosphere that smells of smoke to my sensitive nose. Tomorrow’s supposed to be rainy now, but I’ll believe it when I see it since I sincerely doubt it will cool off as much as the forecast claims it will. I find it difficult to believe it’ll go from a heat index of over one hundred to dipping down into the fifties in less than forty-eight hours (and barely more than thirty-six), but the weather is strange and largely unpredict able at this point, so who knows. Maybe it’ll happen [it didn’t].
Continue readingSlow-Cooked Considerations
After what has turned into three horrible, sweaty days, the heat wave is ending. It has not ended yet, but the wisdom of the remaining pieces of the US national weather prediction aparatus have declared that, by the time I’ve gotten my necessary groceries and made my way home, it will be over. My two sleepless, restless nights will not be joined by a third and the ruddy, glistening sheen of sweat I’ve taken to wearing in the place of my normal mistless pallor will finally take its leave. Even now, as I type this, all my weather apps and services cry out that the worst has passed. “All will be well,” they say, “With a fifty percent chance of severe thunderstorms and a constant overnight temperature not much lower than last night’s.” My office is muggy, made so by the water I’m constantly drinking to feed the stirring air that whicks all perspiration from my skin to compliment the moisture that made making its way through the heavy filters and cooling processes of the building’s HVAC system that leaves this place a dry husk devoid of comfort in the winter and my little thermometer’s delcaration that it is only seventy-six degrees in my litle rectangle does little to comfort me as a result. After all, what does the number mean to me when the only way for me to stop sweating is to sit in my chair and refrain from any kind of movement? What’s the point of knowing the temperature when even the movement of standing up to examine the digital readout is enough to pop tiny beads of just-drunk water on my forehead, upper lip, and forearms? It is hot, it cannot be denied, and I do not need a thermometer to tell me that.
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