Sweating Under the Heat Dome

Always amusing to hear Northerners condescend about air conditioning and global warming, and how we "race from one AC building to another" doing grave environmental damage along the way. However, these same folks have no problem racing from heated building to heating building form several months each year, setting their thermostats in the toasty 70's etc.

Just as we warm climate folks could survive with minimal AC, keeping it warm but not deathly heat (say a home thermostat set at 85 degrees), so too could the cold weather folks have homes heated to say 50 degrees all winter. That's usually when the Northerners get very quiet or change the subject. "Fuel for heating is a right!" "fuel for cooling is morally wrong!"

Navigate from air-conditioned space to the next air-conditioned space. Repeat.

My relationship with my AC Guy necessitates this Yellow-Dog Democrat listening seemingly attentively to his Larouchian rants. It's OK - he finished installing our unit on Easter Sunday last year in time for me to serve the paella, so I'll put up with a lot.

Just another reason why Satan chose to live in Hell and rent out Texas...

I really like it when it's hot....we in NYC don't get 6 month summers - ours lasts between 2-3 months - temps in the 90's last only 1 or 2 weeks. The bugs definitely aren't as big, but the rats are! Houston's reputation for scorching, humid temps precedes itself - it's not on my list of 'vacation' spots. However, it's not 'all bad' - the Astros are only 2 1/2 games behind the Rangers of Arlington!

After living the previous five years in Canada and Germany, I arrived in Houston in August as a college freshman, When those airport doors opened and I was hit with that clammy blast furnace, I realized I was up for a slight adjustment.

Ahhh, Houston. I survived in that town for ten years and once it actually snowed half a millimeter for 10 minutes and the city came to a standstill and kids tried to form snowballs. I do vividly remember one delightful December day when it was a breezy 70 degrees and dry. Now in San Diego that's the permanent forecast year-round. Of course with the rent we're paying on a little condo here, I could buy a country estate there.

But I sure miss the BBQ and Cajun food.

Texas, where we say 'I may not live in Hell, but I'm pretty sure I can see the front gates from here'. Or some such. Used to live in the Hill Country, Wimberley. Let me tell you, no relief there. Owned rental properties in Ruidoso, NM, aka, Little Texas. Now that was nice, but could get a tad hot in the summer.

I currently reside about 4 miles, as a crow flies, from Lake Texoma, the Red River (mosquito heaven) and the Oklahoma border. Was, as they say, 'fixin' to go out and mow my little 3/4 of an acre. This usually takes about 5 hours of steady 'push mowing', no rider for me. Anyway, just checked and our 'real feel' is 113 and going up. It would be worse except we had a cool front come through that gave us abut 8/10ths of an inch of rain. One could cut the air with a knife. The mowing will have to wait, but will have to get out and water the tomatoes.

These are our Gin and Tonic days. Generally wait until midnight to get out and sit on the patio for a bit. Otherwise, it is sleep late, stay inside and read the NY Times.

It is callous to speak of tips for cooling off without noting that they are beyond the means of countless folks. For many, there is no air conditioning, there is a bus ride to work, and there is work outdoors. A trip to Maine is a pipe dream. A writer who addresses only people like herself and seems not to know that there is another world out there is simply out of touch.

While there are more mosquitos in the rural - likely to be poor - neighborhoods, neither insects nor viruses care if you are rich and poor. Once a few rich folks get infected, the Republicans may be more willing to appropriate the funding President Obama has asked for.

It is sad that public health has become so political. Sadder still is that only when Republicans are forced to wear the same shoes before they take action after the fact. Worst of all is that you can expect finger pointing and Congressional hearing will follow, even though career folks have begged and pleaded for months

I grew up in Houston too and we liked to tell the story (I can't vouch for accuracy but is is plausible) that for a while British envoys got hardship pay when stationed in Houston due to the clammy humid hot climate.

Mimi, although I'm not a Texan, I did live in the Dallas area for 8 years, and have dear friends still in Houston. As I recall, the hottest temperature during my years near Dallas was 113 degrees, and the humidity was pretty horrible as well. Going out back to refill my bird feeders invariably resulted in instant and total fogging up of my sunglasses, making it impossible to see what I was doing. Having also lived in Scottsdale, AZ, I can state unequivocally that 118 degrees, which was the hottest temperature I personally experienced there, was brutal - for those who euphemistically wax about "low humidity," or "dry heat," let me suggest that an oven or blast furnace is also "dry heat." Trust me, you can instantly burn your hands opening your car door; wearing shorts and forgetting that you can't sit on a blistering leather seat in your car; your car battery lasts at most 2 years; and people die every year for their abject stupidity in hiking, running, etc. in such horrible temperatures, low humidity notwithstanding. In an ideal world, I'd have 11 months of true Fall - my very favorite season, with crisp, cold nights and pleasant, bracing days. If only!

Having grown up in Houston, I know you are reporting it like it is. A place where you could work up a good sweat sitting in a chair in the shade. "Winter" in Houston is only slightly better: dismal, clammy, rainy, 45-degrees, depressing. Climate, and an allergy to its ubiquitous mildew and mold, is why I left Houston, an otherwise interesting, diverse, cultured, and prosperous town, as soon as I could. Tip: If you must visit Houston, it's not too bad in November or March.

I wonder what towns in Maine "with scary, brooding names" Mimi Swartz
was thinking of when in her article "Sweating Under the Heat Dome" she listed places to which overheated Houstonians flee during the dregs of summer.
Names like Bar Harbor, Seal Harbor, Camden, Wiscasset and Rockport -- all towns that attract summer visitors -- do not sound particularly threatening and evoke only thoughts of sea, sailboats, charm and freshly caught lobsters. Perhaps Ms. Swartz has conflated the ominous Maine of Stephen King's novels with the state's less threatening non-fictional geography.

Folks -- Texas can get hot ... and humid. I work out of Houston during the Hurricane season.

But if you want to see what you-can-die-out-there heat is like, go to the lower elevations in America's Mohave/Sonoran desert. There's a reason it's called "Death Valley." Furnace Creek is often the hottest place in the US.

A region of New Mexico is caled "Jornada del Muerto" -- the journey of death

I have been on the ground in Lake Havasu, when the official temperature was 118° F. You cannot survive outside unless you can get out of the sun. There are no mosquitos in that heat -- they cannot take it.

There have always been hot places -- mostly humans didn't go there. But now air conditioning and global warming are putting more and more people into places where they will die on a bad day, if the AC fails.

One of these days there's going to be a big heat-wave, a really bad one, and a regional electricity outage. And a lot of people are going to die.

It is 11:26 am and so far it is only up to 96.3 in the shade. Heaven only knows what the humidity is. Being on a coastal island we can always hope for a breeze, but last night, even after dark it was a hot wind. The dog walks get shorter and shorter, even the first one at dawn and mostly I just go out with my loose dog into the unfenced yard because he doesn't even have the energy to chase a deer should one appear. A weak bark is all he manages. I'm sure glad we aren't having global warming, but I have to say my citrus trees and other tropical plants have never been happier.

Fans only blow hot air back in a movement of air. AC messes with the global warming. Shades and awnings help but not enough.
The cost of AC is rough, but setting the level high enough to live without discomfort will lower the amount of electricity used overall. What can cost as much or more is having to run dehumidifers in basements that hold things which mildew and mold can destroy.
And, something people should consider also, are the elderly who find themselves suffering more from the heat than from the cold, who have fewer ways to help alleviate their discomfort. Running an AC for them or large fans is far superior to worrying about what it cost.

I celebrate the day I left Florida. It is an absolute pleasure to walk outside without sweating. Oh, and by the way, in the pacific northwest it does rain often and the winters are dark and damp ... And I love every second of it.

It's obvious that Ms. Swartz speaks from experience. Mosquitos beyond number maintain summer homes in Houston. I have even gone to battle with them on more than one Christmas morning.

I know a guy from West Africa who claims he can sit on his porch at night, Mosquito-free, provided he sits next to an industrial strength fan capable of generating gale force winds. Wind is really important. Most days in Houston, though, you're looking at still live.

The Hill Country does offer some respite. However, when I wast last in Austin, the temperature recorded in my car while under covered parking was a hellish 111 degrees F. However, humidity in the Hill Country is not typically a factor, and the area can cool off nicely in the evenings.

Don't get me wrong: I totally sympathize with the folks on the east coast suffering through the heat dome. It can get every bit as miserable in Washington, D.C. during a hot summer day as it can in Houston. In fact, the guy that actually invented air conditioning was from New York or Boston (I can't remember which). We really should build an enormous monument to that guy down here. Of course, the mosquitos will be all over it.

I'm here living in the heat dome and I don't know what I'd do without air-conditioning.

When I look around at the huge metropolitan area where I live and realize almost every building and every car on the road is air-conditioned it stuns me at how much energy it takes for America to make it through the summers. Worse, we know that all of the heat removed from all our buildings ends up outside, certainly making it even hotter out.

Maybe at some point we will have to bite the bullet and just learn to cope with the heat. Everyone but me that is.

What "Heat Dome"? The Republicans swear that there is no such thing as Global Warming. At least any which is caused by mankind. Go join the Republican Party and cool off.........Or come to Florida where it is always warm.

I feel your pain - lived in all parts of Texas but Houston is its own unique brand of h e double hockey sticks. Just would correct one thing -- summer actually goes from sometime maybe in early february until thanksgiving -- at least summers as most know it. And in those 2-3 months Houston can be a nice place. Great food, great neighborhoods, but.... the rest of the time it's a matter of racing from one air conditioned spot to another.

Move slower. Let others, in more of a hurry and easily aggravated, go ahead.
Stop and look at clouds if there are any and really try to see ducks and dogs and dancers and dragons.

In Arizona, if you are in shape, you do strenuous exercise at the hottest time of the day. Several in my office go for 6-mile runs when it is as hot as 118 degrees. After that, everything else seems cooler.

Ms Swartz underestimates the time frame of Houston's summers. Beginning the first of April until December more accurately describes the sauna season We can only wish for a dip into the thirties during our shortened winters. A freeze? How about every other year if we're lucky. But hey, we're recession resistant and the job market is always strong. You can't have it all.

If it's really true that humans evolved in Africa and are ideally comfortable at 92 degrees fahrenheit, then why is Harris County and the rest of southeastern Texas so unbearable? Once a major cotton producing region, Harris County now produces endless tracts of new housing, to replace the structures that the nativized and ineradicable Formosa termites have chewed into an uninhabitable mess. And that takes about 30 years. So housing is cheap, but the collateral costs of living with 15-foot ceilings not to mention a gas cooker with its several eternal pilot flames, and such-like Texan features and cooling them to an ambient 78 degrees, may exceed $400 a month. My bills were over $700. Good news though, is that the utility companies are so poorly run that one may receive "free" current and gas while they sync up their billing. The inescapable arthropods and invertebrates of every description are simply a reminder to opt for cremation and not burial upon one's demise...

Makes me appreciate my New York even more. In my opinion, *nothing* beats the change of seasons:

The joy and optimism of spring gives way to a summer not unlike the one described herein; this, in turn, leads to deliciously refreshing, dry fall days speckled with gorgeous colors, extremely comfortable walks in the park, and light sweaters. Lastly, along comes winter, lately an unknown quantity in our part of the country, but often replete with snowy, blustery evenings allowing one to curl up with a hot drink and a good book while the plows do their thing.

And then that feeling of joy and optimism again as the last winter snow melts, leading to spring, as the cycle begins yet again...

The only argument I could make for NYC being worse is that we have to walk around in our heat (and humidity), stand on crowded subway platforms, and generally get closer to sweating strangers than you Texans.

Stay cool!

Texas? The place that not only sells us oil, but also the place that prevents us from doing anything about global warming? That Texas?

And people complain about Chicago weather? ! We have about 4 1/2 months of cold winter, brilliant and beautiful falls and pleasant summers.

Well, for Houston's contribution to global warming all these years, I'm glad to hear you are enjoying the results. Drill Baby Drill.

Not a single consideration of blistering heat as the result of climate change? How will you deny to yourself an additional 10 F in warming that is sure to come?

Don't Texans come to Mexico anymore? San Miguel de Allende, up here in the mountains, really does cool off at night--into the 50s.

Thanks for the valuable advices. Imaging going into the subway tunnels where trapped heat can raise temperature to 120F and the brain and the body turn to lava. BTW, this is the only article worth reading in today's edition.

Texas probably doesn't believe in global warming and has little incentive to address the issue.

This is what I've found to work for me. Wear light clothing. Don't drink anything hot. Eat salads and fruit. Don't wear socks inside. Dip my feet in cold water. Something about that does wonders as does putting cold water on my neck. Let the lawn go, water the plants, forget about the weeds, have Italian ices, drink water with a twist of lime. Since I'm in New York, I think about winter too. That makes me grateful for not having to put on layers upon layers of clothes to keep warm and then need to remove a few to use the facilities.

Have a sense of humor. Remember that summer is nature's way of telling us to slow down.

AC is one of those vicious cycles that only makes matters worse, like opening your refrigerator to cool the room. Both AC and refrigeration are heat transfer systems, removing heat from one space means adding it to another, while creating even more through the compressor and fans.

Spending $400 a month on electricity means a huge amount of energy generated in part through burning 36,000 tons of coal a day in the W.A. Parish Power Plant 27 miles from Houston.

And then there are all of those HFC gases used in AC and refrigeration systems, which are thousands of times more potent greenhouse gases than CO2.

Just like the burning of the boreal and tropical forests, AC use is both a consequence and cause of global warming. Use of AC is exploding globally, especially in places like India that rely on coal for power.

If Trump is elected President, he will cancel or sabotage the Paris Climate Agreement. Then Texas will look back on this time as the good ol' days, when it was cool.