Heat Records Since 1889
It's probably not a good sign when you're waiting for things to cool off so you can stand working outside again, and you know the cool down has begun when you find out that the temperature has gone down to 103.
The formidable heat continues unabated, and the forecast calls for more of the same through all of next week--overnight lows around 80 and daytime highs 105-107, with no rain. Lest you think that this is business as usual in Kansas, here is a quote from the National Weather Service:
Summer 2011 Proving to be One of the Hottest on Record (So Far...)
Below normal rainfall in concert with periodically strong and stagnant upper level high pressure systems has resulted in sweltering summer heat across much of Mid-America. After recording one of the hottest June's on record, Wichita is poised to record one of the hottest July's on record as well. The average high temperature from June 1st through July 15th at the Air Capital was 96.5 degrees, ranking 2nd warmest since 1889 behind only 1980, when the average June 1st through July 15th high temperature was 97.1 degrees.
The number of days this year where the mercury reached at least 100 degrees at Wichita is also staggering, with 22 such days recorded through July 16th. This ranks 2nd since 1889 behind only 1980, when 23 days of 100 degrees or higher where recorded through July 16th. (End of quote)
Comparing this year's record to the record for each of the past 122 years helps put things into perspective, and it's not reassuring.
If you're one of the people who is convinced that global warming is a figment of some blowhard's runaway imagination, I don't recommend that you broadcast it in these parts at the moment.
**************************
Today at market, almost every conversation of any length touched on the heat.
Earl said he nearly lost consciousness on his way home with a load of peaches he had helped harvest in oppressive heat--in Missouri, I think. His eyes weren't focusing anymore. When he was within about 30 miles from home, he pulled off on a side road and asked his young grandson if he could get them both home. "He didn't have a driver's license, but I know one thing. He got us home, and we wouldn't have gotten home if I had driven. I don't even remember getting there. Pam took him home, and after she got back I helped unload the peaches."
I think Earl was suffering from heat exhaustion. No comment on his decision to let his grandson drive, except that I can understand his desperation.
Norma, who is Amish, talked about how everything you touch is hot. There's a breeze at night, but 90 degrees still feels hot. By morning, when it's coolest, the breeze has died down. With no electricity, no cool air can be drawn through the house, and the whole structure retains a lot of heat from one day to the next. She gets up at 3:30 to do her baking for farmer's market so she can turn off the oven before the day gets too hot.
When Hiromi and I were setting up our stall at market this morning, I muttered to him, "What I really feel like doing right now is turning around and going home."
"Me too," he said. But of course we didn't. We stayed and suffered along with everyone else.
"I haven't worn shorts since I was seven years old," Hiromi told me later, "but I'm thinking about it now."
"Don't," I said. "It's not a good Amish thing to do."
Dale C. looked at our chard leaves and said they'd be perfect for putting on top of a person's head under a hat, to help keep a person cool. That is apparently an old-fashioned trick he was familiar with. I wasn't.
************************
The other day Lizzie told me she always wears a hat outdoors, and she thinks it would help me stay cool when I have to work outside. I tried hers on when she offered it to me, and it felt right--to my surprise. I don't wear sun protection of any sort, and I probably should. Maybe there's a hat in my future. In the meantime, my suntan will have to suffice to protect me from sunburn.
*************************
The guineas hatched today. Nine keets are following behind one parent and walking ahead of the other. I admire their dutiful parental attentions. I don't think we'll have to worry about the babies getting a chill from being led through wet vegetation--one of the threats to the survival of these tiny fuzzy babies.
*************************
I've noticed that our sheep do not seem to like Lamb's Quarter. Today I mentioned that in a conversation with Sheila, who has sheep. "I don't know of anything that really likes Lamb's Quarter," she said. "It'll kill rabbits. We found that out the hard way."
"I like Lamb's Quarter," I said. We used to eat the tender young plants cooked like spinach.
"I do too," she answered. "We eat it like a wilted lettuce salad."
Sheila said sheep love Pigweed, and she's going to ask her neighbor if she can fence his wheat stubble ground which is growing a "bodacious" crop of Pigweed. That'll stretch her pasture a bit. Instead of the usual 350 or so hay bales she's accumulated by now from her land, she has 85.
***********************
Brandi arrived here on Friday to join Lexi. The dogs seemed happy to be together again. Shane surmises that people at Joseph's house got tired of Brandi, so he brought her over. That's OK. We like her. She's more feisty than Lexi, and acts a little more like an adolescent--regularly doing goofy things like snapping at the stream of water coming from the end of a garden hose.
***********************
On Wednesday evening when we had a special service to pray for rain, a number of people spoke about what has become meaningful to them in relation to the drought and heat. Irene quoted from Isaiah 58:11, which was the verse for the day in her devotional reading: "And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy they soul in drought, and make fat thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." The idea of having a satisfied soul in a time of drought was meaningful to her.
Someone else quoted the words of a song taken from Scripture in Habakkuk 3:17-19: Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. . . .
I'm thankful for cold clean drinking water, and good wells for watering plants and keeping animals alive--even for helping them cool off--which I assume is what is keeping the pigs quieter after someone from Oren's household comes over outside of regular chore time to tend to their comfort.
The formidable heat continues unabated, and the forecast calls for more of the same through all of next week--overnight lows around 80 and daytime highs 105-107, with no rain. Lest you think that this is business as usual in Kansas, here is a quote from the National Weather Service:
Summer 2011 Proving to be One of the Hottest on Record (So Far...)
Below normal rainfall in concert with periodically strong and stagnant upper level high pressure systems has resulted in sweltering summer heat across much of Mid-America. After recording one of the hottest June's on record, Wichita is poised to record one of the hottest July's on record as well. The average high temperature from June 1st through July 15th at the Air Capital was 96.5 degrees, ranking 2nd warmest since 1889 behind only 1980, when the average June 1st through July 15th high temperature was 97.1 degrees.
The number of days this year where the mercury reached at least 100 degrees at Wichita is also staggering, with 22 such days recorded through July 16th. This ranks 2nd since 1889 behind only 1980, when 23 days of 100 degrees or higher where recorded through July 16th. (End of quote)
Comparing this year's record to the record for each of the past 122 years helps put things into perspective, and it's not reassuring.
If you're one of the people who is convinced that global warming is a figment of some blowhard's runaway imagination, I don't recommend that you broadcast it in these parts at the moment.
**************************
Today at market, almost every conversation of any length touched on the heat.
Earl said he nearly lost consciousness on his way home with a load of peaches he had helped harvest in oppressive heat--in Missouri, I think. His eyes weren't focusing anymore. When he was within about 30 miles from home, he pulled off on a side road and asked his young grandson if he could get them both home. "He didn't have a driver's license, but I know one thing. He got us home, and we wouldn't have gotten home if I had driven. I don't even remember getting there. Pam took him home, and after she got back I helped unload the peaches."
I think Earl was suffering from heat exhaustion. No comment on his decision to let his grandson drive, except that I can understand his desperation.
Norma, who is Amish, talked about how everything you touch is hot. There's a breeze at night, but 90 degrees still feels hot. By morning, when it's coolest, the breeze has died down. With no electricity, no cool air can be drawn through the house, and the whole structure retains a lot of heat from one day to the next. She gets up at 3:30 to do her baking for farmer's market so she can turn off the oven before the day gets too hot.
When Hiromi and I were setting up our stall at market this morning, I muttered to him, "What I really feel like doing right now is turning around and going home."
"Me too," he said. But of course we didn't. We stayed and suffered along with everyone else.
"I haven't worn shorts since I was seven years old," Hiromi told me later, "but I'm thinking about it now."
"Don't," I said. "It's not a good Amish thing to do."
Dale C. looked at our chard leaves and said they'd be perfect for putting on top of a person's head under a hat, to help keep a person cool. That is apparently an old-fashioned trick he was familiar with. I wasn't.
************************
The other day Lizzie told me she always wears a hat outdoors, and she thinks it would help me stay cool when I have to work outside. I tried hers on when she offered it to me, and it felt right--to my surprise. I don't wear sun protection of any sort, and I probably should. Maybe there's a hat in my future. In the meantime, my suntan will have to suffice to protect me from sunburn.
*************************
The guineas hatched today. Nine keets are following behind one parent and walking ahead of the other. I admire their dutiful parental attentions. I don't think we'll have to worry about the babies getting a chill from being led through wet vegetation--one of the threats to the survival of these tiny fuzzy babies.
*************************
I've noticed that our sheep do not seem to like Lamb's Quarter. Today I mentioned that in a conversation with Sheila, who has sheep. "I don't know of anything that really likes Lamb's Quarter," she said. "It'll kill rabbits. We found that out the hard way."
"I like Lamb's Quarter," I said. We used to eat the tender young plants cooked like spinach.
"I do too," she answered. "We eat it like a wilted lettuce salad."
Sheila said sheep love Pigweed, and she's going to ask her neighbor if she can fence his wheat stubble ground which is growing a "bodacious" crop of Pigweed. That'll stretch her pasture a bit. Instead of the usual 350 or so hay bales she's accumulated by now from her land, she has 85.
***********************
Brandi arrived here on Friday to join Lexi. The dogs seemed happy to be together again. Shane surmises that people at Joseph's house got tired of Brandi, so he brought her over. That's OK. We like her. She's more feisty than Lexi, and acts a little more like an adolescent--regularly doing goofy things like snapping at the stream of water coming from the end of a garden hose.
***********************
On Wednesday evening when we had a special service to pray for rain, a number of people spoke about what has become meaningful to them in relation to the drought and heat. Irene quoted from Isaiah 58:11, which was the verse for the day in her devotional reading: "And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy they soul in drought, and make fat thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." The idea of having a satisfied soul in a time of drought was meaningful to her.
Someone else quoted the words of a song taken from Scripture in Habakkuk 3:17-19: Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. . . .
I'm thankful for cold clean drinking water, and good wells for watering plants and keeping animals alive--even for helping them cool off--which I assume is what is keeping the pigs quieter after someone from Oren's household comes over outside of regular chore time to tend to their comfort.
posted by Mrs. I at
8:31 PM
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