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2010-07-21 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

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Posted by Fred 2010-07-21 00:00|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 BS. Except for one week it has been cooler than normal and that week it was _far_ cooler than during the 2003 heat wave.

Posted by JFM 2010-07-21 04:30|| 2010-07-21 04:30|| Front Page Top

#2 The heat wave across much of Europe is also causing crops to wither, forest fires to ignite and roads to melt, while refrigerators and fans are buckling in the searing sun.

Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2010-07-21 05:20|| 2010-07-21 05:20|| Front Page Top

#3 Me, too, thinks they're confused about the ozone, TW. At the surface level, ozone is a major contributor to smog (bad for the lungs). What about the humidity? That will affect breathing also (in fact my Dad went into the hospital last Sunday due in part to shortness of breath - very hot and humid this summer).

Posted by Spot 2010-07-21 08:07|| 2010-07-21 08:07|| Front Page Top

#4 Here's the original CNN story. It looks like the Iran PressTV reporter is a bit over-excited. It would be useful to compare the death numbers over a comparable period in each of the last 5-10 years. JFM provides a bit of what we need, above.

There were 300 deaths in the last week of June and the first week of July alone, a week in which Belgium had unusually high temperatures of 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher for seven days in a row, Cox said.

For three days that week, the country also had "critical" levels of ozone, she said.

For six days so far in July, temperatures at Brussels International Airport have topped 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), with a maximum of 33 degrees Celsius (91 degrees Fahrenheit), CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward said. He added that the average high for this time of year is only 22 degrees Celsius (72 degrees Fahrenheit).

Ward said neither April nor May was terribly warm as a whole, with the highest temperature during either month about 26 degrees Celsius (79 degrees Fahrenheit).

Posted by trailing wife 2010-07-21 09:22|| 2010-07-21 09:22|| Front Page Top

#5 TW

What I said concerns France (and more concretely Paris who is only 140 miles from the Belgian border) but I doubt it is that different over Belgium. Also if you look at the numbers from CNN something doesn't add up as 22C is given as the average high for June and then we are told that they had 26 in May and that wasn't unusually hot.

BTW: Yesterday, you asked if there were other French like me. Don't know but I remind you that I am not a real French but a Pied Noir.

Posted by JFM 2010-07-21 12:09|| 2010-07-21 12:09|| Front Page Top

#6 I am not a real French but a Pied Noir...

...une race en voie de disparition?

How many Pieds Noirs remain?

Posted by lex 2010-07-21 13:35|| 2010-07-21 13:35|| Front Page Top

#7 There need only be 1.

Posted by Shipman 2010-07-21 13:40|| 2010-07-21 13:40|| Front Page Top

#8 "For six days so far in July, temperatures at Brussels International Airport have topped 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), with a maximum of 33 degrees Celsius (91 degrees Fahrenheit)"

86F? 91F? And they've got hundreds dead from the heat?

Jeezus harry christmas! It's already been over 100F and humid here a couple of days this year (and is forecast to be again this weekend) and I haven't heard of anyone dying from the heat. Somebody wanna explain that to me?

(BTW, 100F is a tad hot for this area, even in summer and even in August, our hottest month. It's 91F right now - 1:30 p.m. - and should reach 97F or 98F this afternoon.)

"while refrigerators and fans are buckling in the searing sun"

I think I see their problem - try bringing the refrigerators and fans indoors, out of the sun. Yeesh.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2010-07-21 13:41|| 2010-07-21 13:41|| Front Page Top

#9 French or Pied Noire, you are special to us, JFM.

Barbara, most homes and some offices do not have air conditioning.

Posted by trailing wife 2010-07-21 13:49|| 2010-07-21 13:49|| Front Page Top

#10 I know, tw. I used to live in Germany, and I remember the few days one summer that were hot (by their standards).

I also remember growing up without air conditioning. Yeah, it's hot, but we at least had electric fans (don't want to even try to imagine life in the South before electricity!). AND I remember the summer not too many years ago when I was laid off, my A/C unit was broken, and I couldn't afford to replace it. That sucked - no argument here.

But hundreds of people dying from temperatures under 90F? There's got to be something more to it.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2010-07-21 14:03|| 2010-07-21 14:03|| Front Page Top

#11 AC is for the weak. The Lord sends heat and water to make us strong. Put on your pith helmet and buck up, it's only for 8 months of the year.

Nao! Ima go kill 'skeeters with my rubber-band, it's awesome sport. Later perhaps, I'll go to the basement and work on the Panama Canal.

And Gin, yes.

Posted by Shipman 2010-07-21 14:12|| 2010-07-21 14:12|| Front Page Top

#12 Somebody wanna explain that to me?
I'll make a couple of stabs at 'splainin'.
-- It takes several days to acclimate to high temperatures. Sudden spikes in the heat index are especially stressful to the susceptible. If the weather fluctuates constantly between heat waves and normal temps, some people will never acclimatize.
-- Elderly are extremely susceptible to heat-related injuries. Unless you've had a lot of experience dealing with the elderly in hot weather, you just can't appreciate their obliviousness to levels of heat that are immediately acted upon by younger people. Kindly refrain from anecdotes about octogenarians completing the Death Valley Marathon last week, there are always statistical outliers and flat liars. The percentage of elderly people (in the Euro and US population) is probably at its highest point in human history.
-- Some civilized environments are constructed so as to maximize heat stress during heat waves. I will bet most of the parts of the USA which regularly suffer from temps of 100 and max humidity also have countless places where A/C is installed & running, from homes of friends & relations to stores, public buildings, cars & urban 'cooling centers.' This is not likely to exist in many parts of northern Europe where a very similar wave of heat-related deaths happened in France a few years back. Even if a person is in an air-conditioned (or cooler) environment for just an hour or two out of a single 24-hour period during a heat wave, their ability to tolerate heat is greatly enhanced. I read somewhere that in many parts of Europe people only drink tea, coffee, bottled water, etc. & would never drink plain tap water. A population with habits like that would tend to have many people always on the verge of dehydration. After a wave of heat deaths in the elderly years back, Chicago instituted a public health program to put notices on local media, encourage people to check on elderly neighbors & relatives, and move the susceptible to cooling centers for a few hours a day to stave off extra heat-related deaths. Also notice that during the immediate aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, people over 70 were the most likely to die - of heat stress and dehydration. And this was in a part of the country habituated to high heat, humidity, and widespread availability of A/C (until the power failed for weeks at a time.)
Without the widespread use of A/C, I think much of the US South would never have developed economically to its current level.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-07-21 14:13|| 2010-07-21 14:13|| Front Page Top

#13 Also in all seriousness...

What Anguper Hupomosing9418 said.

Posted by Shipman 2010-07-21 14:15|| 2010-07-21 14:15|| Front Page Top

#14 But hundreds of people dying from temperatures under 90F? It makes sense to me, knowing what I know about heat related injuries, changes in medical care, and the shifts in population.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-07-21 14:16|| 2010-07-21 14:16|| Front Page Top

#15 Good summary, Anguper.

"I read somewhere that in many parts of Europe people only drink tea, coffee, bottled water, etc. & would never drink plain tap water."

I can sure testify to that! When I lived there, it was a bitch trying to get a glass of plain ol' water (not mineral water or seltzer water, but just plain in-a-glass-out-of-the-tap water). I quickly learned the German word for tap water (leitungswasser), then found I had to specify that I wanted it from the cold water tap, not the hot. I saw no point in paying for water when their tap water was perfectly good, and still don't now that I'm back home.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2010-07-21 14:22|| 2010-07-21 14:22|| Front Page Top

#16 Have they tried ice cubes and cold beer? Could try making sun tea, clouded up just 10 minutes after I set'm out.

Posted by swksvolFF 2010-07-21 15:01|| 2010-07-21 15:01|| Front Page Top

#17 Barbara, most homes and some offices do not have air conditioning.

And what's worse, they're designed to actively trap heat in the winter.

Posted by Things From Snowy Mountains 2010-07-21 15:01|| 2010-07-21 15:01|| Front Page Top

#18 Whoops, I let something important go without saying. The source article is a bit of PR for the religion of anthropogenic global-warmism. If the Belgians were serious about immediately reducing the death toll from whatever heat waves they have, the way has been clearly marked (& discussed) above. Whatever AGW has advocated to expiate whatever AGW type sins we may have committed, will have no positive effect in the lifetime of anyone now living and will have many adverse effects, such as crippling national economies and spiking the cost of living.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-07-21 15:10|| 2010-07-21 15:10|| Front Page Top

#19 "I read somewhere that in many parts of Europe people only drink tea, coffee, bottled water, etc. & would never drink plain tap water."

In Germany, at least, they are still convinced that tap water is unsafe. Tea and coffee are made with boiled water. Perhaps water drawn from the rivers is indeed unsafe -- do the Swiss chemical companies still dump directly? -- but where we lived in the Taunus hills above Frankfurt, the municipal tap water was drawn directly from some of the springs the region's health spas made famous... and yet the locals refused to drink tap water, unboiled.

Posted by trailing wife 2010-07-21 15:46|| 2010-07-21 15:46|| Front Page Top

#20 When I was very young (1950-51) we lived in St Johns Newfoundland, one summer they had a "Heat Wave" temperatures got all the way UP to 70F and people were falling out with heatstroke.
Dad said it was because they didn't know how to dress for warm weather, many were still wearing wool shirts, long Johns and didn't take them off.

We (Southerners) were running around in light shirts and shorts and were comfortable.
They thought our "Dress" was outlandish.

Same here.
Bet they're still wearing "Traditional" clothes.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2010-07-21 15:49|| 2010-07-21 15:49|| Front Page Top

#21 Also Belgians have not adapted to heat. Their houses aren't built the right way, they don't open and close windows at the right moments, they eat and drink the wrong things.

BTw: my family recipe of lemonade.

For four big glasses.

One part lemon juice, three parts of water, the gratings of a lemon and a stick of cynamon. Mix and let in the fridge for an hour. Add just enough sugar to neutralize the lemon's acid. Juice must be neither acid nor sweet. Another hour uin the fridge. Filter. Put in the freezer until half of the juice is liquid and half is frozen. Serve and drink through straws.

Now comes the crucial difference between a Belgian lemon juice (boo, hiss) and a civilized one (cheers): ice requires 82 times more calories to melt than same quantity of water to heat one degree. So you drink the liquid part, let melt a bit, drink. You will enjoy ice cold drink well after the "Belgian juice" is luke warm.

Posted by JFM 2010-07-21 16:12|| 2010-07-21 16:12|| Front Page Top

#22 Without the widespread use of A/C, I think much of the US South would never have developed economically to its current level.

If you follow the availability of AC and the overall population shift west and south, you will find a pattern. Based upon the 2000 census - Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

However, you'll also note that Dallas, Phoenix, Vegas, Atlanta and other large metropolitan islands existed as well as a good size population outside those definitions well before AC was a common commodity. All AC was to create dynamic growth outside the normal population growth. People coped.

Posted by Procopius2k 2010-07-21 16:16|| 2010-07-21 16:16|| Front Page Top

#23 I saw no point in paying for water when their tap water was perfectly good, and still don't now that I'm back home.

To Barbara Skolaut. German tap water is OK but there are parts of the world eg Taiwan where they see no point in purifying water when 99% of it will be used for washing clothes, showers, or toilets. So tap water is NOT safe to drink. If you want drinkable water you must buy bottled water or fill a recipient at a "water station".

Posted by JFM 2010-07-21 16:17|| 2010-07-21 16:17|| Front Page Top

#24 Sounds like a keeper recipe JFM, mind if I give it a try?

We do iced tea out here. Gallon/2litres of water, three tea bags, place in the sun for 3 hours to brew, chill in the refrigerator, serve over much ice. I like to garnish with crushed mint and flavorful honey according to tea used - my wife prefers the sweet tea but that much sugar gives me the jitters. I have done this with many kinds of tea, herbal teas are great and usually do without the caffeine.

Posted by swksvolFF 2010-07-21 17:13|| 2010-07-21 17:13|| Front Page Top

#25 "German tap water is OK but there are parts of the world eg Taiwan where they see no point in purifying water when 99% of it will be used for washing clothes, showers, or toilets."

You've got that right, JFM. I'd say it most of the world (outside of Western Europe, Australia, probably Japan, and North America minus Mexico). Most places I've travelled have had treated municipal water, but I've been some places that don't. (As my dad always said, don't use the ice cubes either.) There, I drank either bottled water or something else in a sealed container. My (military) boyfriend told me about brushing his teeth with Gatorade when he was on TDY in Turkey. (They were someplace they couldn't get bottled water.)

True story (that probably has some meaning, but I won't speculate what it is): I worked with some native German ladies when I lived there. They thought I was nuts to drink from the tap, and didn't mind saying so, but I saw them use tap water (which was all that was available at the time and place) to take an aspirin or some other medication. When I pointed that out to them, they said that was different - the pills ~~magically~~ made it OK. Go figure.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2010-07-21 18:14|| 2010-07-21 18:14|| Front Page Top

#26 Not all of Australia has treated municipal water. Port Douglas, for example, at least 5 years ago. I was shocked when the hotel told me to brush with bottled water.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2010-07-21 18:24|| 2010-07-21 18:24|| Front Page Top

#27 When Mr. Wife was tootling round the non-First World, he either brushed his teeth with bottled water or scotch/gin/rum -- whatever appeared safely sealed in the hotel room refrigerator. A friend of mine related how she watched the hotel maid in Egypt clean the sink and bathroom cup with the rag she'd just used to clean the toilet... and left it all sparkling, my friend said.

Posted by trailing wife 2010-07-21 20:10|| 2010-07-21 20:10|| Front Page Top

#28 Travelers should be crying for a portable reverse osmosis unit with UV light...

Posted by 3dc 2010-07-21 20:34|| 2010-07-21 20:34|| Front Page Top

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