We are a couple of days into July, yet the heat and the humidity are already trying to kill me. Technically, Summer is only a week or so old, but the reality is this one is shaping up to be one of the hottest Summer on record. I remember a time when September offered some relief but now that month has become August 2.0. October begins warm, but at least the days are shorter, but even that brings its own misery.
With leaves falling not because of cooler weather but the lack of sunlight, October has a unique talent for radiation poisoning late in the day. We started noticing this years ago, but now the heat is making it worse. Temperatures are not going down in the autumn of the year, and even Thanksgiving and Christmas have become accustomed to eighty-degree heat.
Tropical Storm Arthur formed briefly in the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico and brought a lot of rain, five inches in two days for South Georgia, and yes, we needed it, but that seems to be a trend in the last few years; wet storms coming out of the Gulf of Mexico bringing a lot of rain all at once. A pattern is forming, lots of hot dry weeks followed by a flood, followed by drought.
Of course, it’s not very smart to extrapolate climate from a few years of weather, but a trend seems to be forming. This is not the world I grew up in.
In 1998, the temperature hit one hundred and five and an asphalt crew mutinied. All of them quit at one time, and their supervisor vowed to fire all of them. I was out there with them and had a nineteen-year-old guy they just hired to be out there with me. He quit. They allowed him to come back but he never worked with me again.
I remember the next day, which was Saturday, I was cooked. I stayed inside all day and drank beer. I had never been so exhausted in my life. I also stopped daring the heat to kill me.
The woods, which for twenty-five years have been clear of underbrush now is crowded with fast growing weeds. Dog fennel, beauty berries, and a host of other plants I’ve never seen around here have exploded from the now fertile and suddenly unshaded woods. I lost dozens of trees in the floods and the hurricanes, and some are still toppling over.
Now, however, the big thing is heat.
I can mow, and I’m using a push mower because gas is $3.60 a gallon, and before nine in the morning it’s not hellish. It’s light enough to see by about seven. I have two hours a day to do what I can before the heat gets to the point I know it’s going to drag me down more than the actual work.
At 65, I can still function in this environment and do well, but I wonder what this will be like in five years.
Take Care,
Mike
The records reflect that temperatures are rising, whether from human activity, previously undiscovered natural cycle, or some weird cosmic event from another galaxy that finally rippled it’s way to us.
What nobody talks about is the human beings ability to handle the heat as they age. There’s a reason weather forecasters warn the very young, the elderly, and the health-compromised when temperatures exceed the normal (of 30 years ago) in summer and winter.
and what’s funny is the opposition’s argument of “that started thirty years ago and nothing happened” – yeah dude, nothing happened BECAUSE of the awareness and the measures taken in the past three decades
BS, that is no BS there! The heat is killing me when I work outside now.
Yet, the media is mute on the facts regarding climate change, kowtowing to the ignorant masses who believe fossil fuel propaganda.
CAI, don’t worry. It’s going to get worse before it gets worse. As soon as we start losing crops to the heat and food gets expensive, that’s when things will get truly weird.
If I could give this 10 likes, I would. Turning 70 this month, and after I mow the lawn, I feel 170!
Jim, my top speed was once a mile in less than six minutes. It takes that long to find my glasses now.
What I have noticed in my neck of the woods is my Summers are shorter. We seem to have a monsoon season of sorts. It rains far more than it used to and into the Summer months, where it never did before. I can remember as a teenager swimming in April. It was plenty warm. This year our Summer just really got started in late June, it was raining too frequently to swim or do anything else. It’s been that way for the past ten years or so, maybe longer. What little Summer we do get to have is hot, but it always was. It just doesn’t last as long as it used to. We used to have Summer through October or so. Now we are lucky if Labor Day still feels like Summer. Our Winters have become brutal as well. Snow! I say NO! As someone who loves Summer, this is unacceptable to me. I know it’s climate change and all, but I need my long Summer. Texas is supposed to be Hot for most of the year and mild the rest.
Working for my county’s highway department during college breaks encouraged me to get a degree where I could work inside.
As I get older, I also tolerate the heat and humidity less, so I do yardwork usually in the early evening for the coolish weather.
Fortunately for us, spring was cooler than usual. It was nice to keep windows open and take advantage of natural A/C.
Tim, it will be late September before I’ll see cooler weather here in South Georgia. Maybe even October. I remember the first cool spells hitting in early September, not hanging around long, but the humidity was lower. Now, it’s like September is mostly summer, and October wants to be.