How Hot Is It?

It's been nearly 20 years since Johnny Carson left The Tonight Show, but, if you can remember when he was the show's host, you can probably remember many of his ongoing routines.

I'm thinking of one in particular that was usually likely to surface during Carson's monologue, but it could happen at any time. It frequently popped up when something really extreme had been happening — for example, a lot more (or a lot less, for that matter) rain than usual.

He would say something like, "It was so wet (or dry) today that ..." and, before he could finish the joke, the audience would roar as one, "How wet (or dry) was it?"

As I say, it could be anything extreme — or anything, at least, that was perceived to be extreme. It could be "Dan Quayle is so dumb" or "Al Gore is so wooden."

Weather was always a good source, but it could be anything. Carson and his writers could be very creative at times.

(All together now — How creative were they?)

Lately, as the nation has been enduring the kind of heat wave that usually seems to be reserved only for Texas, I've been missing Carson.

Well, actually, as far as I am concerned, late night TV has never been the same since he left — so missing Carson is not a new thing for me — but, when there's something in progress like this heat wave, I really miss him.

These times cry out for an opportunity for heat–weary people to shout in unison, "How hot is it?"

Jacy Marmaduke of the Dallas Morning News has been keeping area residents advised as local temperatures have cracked triple digits daily for four straight weeks now.

Recently, this summer's heat wave claimed the second slot on the historical list. It overtook the summer of 1998 a few days ago.

I was living in Dallas in the summer of 1998, and that was, indeed, a brutal summer. I was working for a trade magazine and I had to cover a trade show in Chicago that July. While I was there, I encountered quite a few people who had come from places to the north — and some were complaining of the heat.

Personally, I didn't find the heat in Chicago nearly as severe as the weather I had just left. The difference was noticeable upon my return.

I don't think that would be true this summer. Nearly the entire country has been sweltering. It's been easing lately in places where it usually doesn't get that hot, but much of the country remains in the heat wave's grip.

Depending upon the cloud cover we have, our streak of triple–digit days may come to an end around here tomorrow — but, even if it does, the immediate forecast suggests that a brand–new streak is likely to begin on Sunday, and that one seems certain to continue for awhile.

Besides, as a meteorologist told Marmaduke, there isn't much difference between 99° and 100°. The difference is almost entirely psychological.

If the streak does not end tomorrow, the summer of 2011 may well go down as the hottest on record — at least in terms of consecutive 100° days.

To accomplish that, it will have to exceed the triple–digit streak of 1980 — and it just might do that, but it will never match the intensity of the summer of 1980.

I remember that one, too.

I wasn't living in Dallas in those days, but my grandmother was, and I remember coming here with my mother to visit my grandmother, who was starting to experience symptoms of dementia.

Daytime highs in 1980 seemed to get past 100° before noon and just kept climbing through the afternoon. I remember several days when temperatures flirted with 110° (the worst actually exceeded 110° a few times) — and I remember driving on the streets of Dallas and hearing the asphalt squish beneath the tires.

In 1980, a daytime high of only 100° was seen by some as a sign of an imminent cool front (it never was, but hope sprang eternal. Those triple–digit temperatures were daily facts of life for more than six weeks).

Needless to say, you could do a lot more than fry an egg on the pavement.

This summer's heat wave has been a scorcher, but the summer of 1980 (if it possessed human characteristics) would scoff. I can just imagine the things it would say. "Amateur!" it would sneer. "In my day, I gave 'em heat they're still talking about three decades later."

If some have their way, though, that consecutive triple–digit streak will tumble, and the summer of 2011 will be atop the list when all is said and done.

Marmaduke quotes a 15–year–old from Plano who wants a streak he can tell his grandkids about.

All I can say is, be careful what you wish for.

There Will Come Soft Rains

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"There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence–wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone."

Sara Teasdale
(1884–1933)

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Yesterday was another 100–plus–degree day here in Dallas.

I don't know how many straight days of this we have had. I'm sure we've cracked the old century mark every day in July, and the streak probably goes back to the last few days of June.

How long will it continue? I don't know. I check the NOAA website every day, and the last time I looked at it, the temperatures in this area were supposed to be in triple digits at least until this time next week. NOAA's forecasts don't go beyond a week — and Texas weather is notorious for changing without notice — so it may well be weeks before we see our next sub–100° day around here.

I've heard that, statistically, this is just a typical summer in north Texas, and I've lived through enough Texas summers in my life to know that there is a certain amount of truth in that. It's been common knowledge for a long time that it gets really hot here. The average temperatures in July and August are in the mid–90s, but it isn't uncommon for the temperature to exceed 100°.

Every summer, in fact — and often in the spring and autumn months, too — I am frequently reminded of one of my favorite quotations. It came from Union Gen. Phil Sheridan, who is remembered in the history books for his march to the sea, during which he burned the city of Atlanta (an event that was vividly re–created in "Gone With the Wind").

For a time before the Civil War, Sheridan was assigned to a fort in Texas along the Rio Grande. The experience of living here prompted him to say, "If I owned hell and Texas, I would rent out Texas and live in hell."

Sheridan, of course, lived here long before the invention of air conditioning, but I have encountered no disagreement with him among people who have lived here since A/C came along. If anything, those who live here today tend to resent the way they think the utility companies take advantage of heat waves like the one we've been experiencing this summer.

Air conditioning is a necessary evil here, especially when it is as hot as it has been lately. We are constantly reminded that heat is responsible for more deaths around here than any other meteorological cause. Makes sense. There's always more of it.

Anyway, to protect ourselves from the heat, we must run the air conditioning. We have no choice — and, when the daytime highs exceed 100° and the nighttime lows don't even go below 80°, the air conditioning seems to run ceaselessly.

And that leads to incredibly high utility bills — which are never welcome, especially at a time when gas prices are still well over $3/gallon.

But it will end ... eventually.

It was that thought that reminded me of Teasdale's poem from the collection titled "Flame and Shadow" that was published in 1920.

Well, I thought of the title of the poem more than the poem itself — because the poem itself speaks of a post–apocalyptic war world in which humanity has been destroyed and nature starts to reclaim the planet.

I'll grant you, scorched earth might be a good description of this place when the heat wave finally does subside — but that's the point. It will subside.

The temperature will drop — and cool, soft rains will return.

Someday. Maybe soon. Maybe not. But someday.

Hot Enough For You?

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They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

But there's only one word that would be adequate for this — and it probably wouldn't be appropriate to post it here.

I took this picture from the balcony outside my bedroom in Dallas, Texas, around 4:30 this afternoon. If it isn't clear to you, that black–and–white thing is a person dressed in a full–body cow costume. He/she is holding a sign that promotes the management's "m–o–o–o–o–ve in specials" with one hand and waving at traffic with the other.

This is not new. Someone — perhaps several different someones — has been standing out there for a couple of hours a day most of this year.

At 4:30 this afternoon, the temperature in Dallas was approximately 94° — which really isn't too bad by historical standards. I've been in Dallas in many Julys when the temperature was much higher. If you live in Dallas, you just take it for granted that it's going to be hot here in July. I don't know if climate change exists, but it's going to have to be pretty extreme to change that reality.

Anyway, as I say, it hasn't been quite as hot as it often is, but we've had a lot more rain this summer than usual, too — which is strange because our wettest month tends to be May, but this year May was abnormally dry so things seem to be happening in a kind of reverse order — and that, along with the higher–than–usual lake and river levels in this part of the country, seems to have elevated the humidity quite a bit as well.

Now, don't get me wrong. It is usually humid in north Texas at this time of year, but it is abnormally so this summer.

Consequently, at 4:30 this afternoon, the heat index stood at 102°. And I'm sure the person inside the cow costume was a sweaty mess.

I've been out of work for quite awhile and I've considered things I never thought I would consider, but I have to say that it's hard to imagine being so desperate for money that I would do that.

I don't know how much they're paying that person to stand out there in that costume in the sweltering heat of a Dallas July, but it would have to be a lot.

Especially with the latest forecasts calling for actual temperatures near 100° later this week.