h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yet again, it's...



Hotter than two rats...
Making love...
In a wool sock...
On a tin roof...
In the middle of August...
In Thibodaux, Louisiana.

With a mouth full of porcupine quills?

"Look for sunny skies today with a high near 103. At 6.30 it's 80°."

Not what you want to hear when you wake up in the morning and switch on the radio, especially with 2 1/2 months of summer still to come We actually did hit 103 yesterday, a new record for the date.

Houston is expecting 102°. And that's with 79% humidity.
It's bad enough that I'm sweating, but the air is sweating back!

By 7.30 it was 81; 82 by 8am, and at 8.40 it's 83. I'm going to the supermarket before it gets too stupidly hot. I have to bake bread today too. I'm looking for some big electricity bills over the next few months - it's a lot warmer in this upstairs apartment than it was downstairs with the sun beating down on the roof, just a few feet above my ceiling. In the downstairs apartment I could turn off the a/c when I was at work during the day and it wouldn't get much warmer than the mid 80s, but it gets much warmer in this one so I have to leave the a/c on but turn the thermostat to a higher temperature than when I'm here.

You're almost surely better off leaving the A/C on during the day. Raise the thermostat to a level you're comfortable returning to. If you raise it too high it will take too long to cool the place back down at night.

It's better to let the A/C cycle often during the day than to make it try to catch up at night.

I tried turning my A/C off during the days when I worked an hour away. I figured that since I wasn't in the apartment for 10-12 hours during the day there was little reason to air condition it. But what that meant was once I turned it on it stayed on until maybe 3:00 am before it cooled back down. It also let my water bed heat up and it wouldn't get comfortable until about 5:00 am. So, basically I only had about two comfortable hours in the apartment each day.

After I decided just to leave the A/C on all day and just raise the thermostat by about 5 degrees during the day instead, my bill went down by a significant amount.

That wasn't a problem with the apartment downstairs. I tried both, and there was no significant difference in the bills. It's only a 380 sq ft apartment so it cooled down very quickly and was comfortable within five or ten minutes. Both apartments have a south-facing window. I'd close the blinds in the other one so that the sun didn't shine directly into the place, but it was a downstairs flat so I had my cacti outside. This one is an upstairs flat so I have to have the cacti indoors (they wouldn't get enough light on the north-facing balcony), and the only place for them is on the bookcase that runs under the south-facing window. Up to now I've been leaving the blind open so that they get plenty of sun, but that's going to have to stop for the next two or three months.

Random thought... did you know that poinsettias grow in the wild on the North faces of mountains in Mexico?

I did not know that. And I really must get some shade-loving plants for the balcony. Couldn't hurt to have a few herbs out there, especially rosemary.

83F at 7am today

105F/40.6 yesterday. Add in the heat index and that goes up to around 114/45.5 downtown. The average for this time of the year is 93.

Well, I just returned from my very early morning 30 minute walk... and it will be the last for a while as it is just too hot. Starting the day off covered in sweat.

Maybe I can get in a habit of after dinner bike rides at sunset instead.

I'd stick with the morning if I were you - low 80s at dawn sounds a lot better than mid 90s at sunset.

Nah... sweating after work is preferable to before.

This just in:

322 AM CDT THU JUN 25 2009 - THE HEAT ADVISORY IS NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM CDT FRIDAY.

A HEAT ADVISORY HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR SE TX AS THE HEAT INDEX HAS REACHED ABOVE 108 DEGREES YESTERDAY & IS EXPECTED TO REACH ABOVE 108 AGAIN TODAY. THESE SAME CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED FRIDAY. A HEAT ADVISORY IS ISSUED WHEN TWO CONSECUTIVE DAYS OF A HEAT INDEX OF 108 OR ABOVE IS EXPECTED. THE HEAT INDEX MUST FALL,OR BE FORECAST TO FALL, BELOW 105 DEGREES BEFORE THE ADVISORY IS CANCELED.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS -

IF YOU PLAN TO BE OUTSIDE, AVOID PROLONGED EXPOSURE OR STRENUOUS PHYSICAL ACTIVITY. YOUR BODY CAN LOSE UP TO A GALLON OF WATER AN HOUR THROUGH PERSPIRATION. DRINK PLENTY OF FLUIDS TO AVOID DEHYDRATION. ALCOHOLIC & CAFFEINATED BEVERAGES CAN INCREASE THE RATE OF WATER LOSS IN YOUR BODY, INCREASING THE RISK OF HEAT EXHAUSTION OR STROKE. WEAR LIGHTWEIGHT, LIGHT-COLORED, LOOSE-FITTING CLOTHING. WEAR A HAT TO SHIELD YOURSELF FROM THE SUN, AND USE A SUNSCREEN TO REDUCE POSSIBLE SUNBURN.

Well. The maximum at Camp Mabry today - 106F/41.1C, and 107/41.7 at the airport. Thankfully the humidity has been fairly low (in the low 20%) during the hottest part of the day, rising during the night to the mid to uppers 60%. I just got my electricity bill for May 13th to June 15th - $53.56, which isn't too far above the average bill. During spring and autumn when I'm not heating or cooling the place it's usually somewhere in the $35 - $40 range (and don't forget that I live in a very small one-room (plus khazi) apartment), rising to around $70 a month in the summer/winter.

This upstairs apartment is going to cost me a lot more to keep at a comfortable temperature. The ceiling is hot to the touch and is acting like a giant radiator warming the apartment up because the sun is beating down on the roof, heating up the roofspace, and you can bet that when this place was built (late 70s/early 80s) little or no thought was given to insulation because a) energy was cheap and b) that would have added to the cost. The pantry is far too warm for me to keep food in right now, even packaged and tinned food I reckon. It's divided into an upper and a lower section with a shelf between the two where the microwave is. I've got food and booze in the top part, cooking utensils and bowls in the bottom. I think I'm going to have to switch them around, which is a bit of a drag because it's so much easier to get the food out of a cupboard at eye level than it is to have to bend down, especially when you have so many stiff joints as I increasingly do

There's one ceiling fan in the apartment. It's at the end where I don't sit, what they call in the floor plan for this apartment, the sleeping area. But I don't sleep in it!!! I think very few people do in these studio flats - they have a sofabed of some kind and have it at the other end (I use the word 'end' in a rather joking fashion, given the postage stamp size of the place), in the 'living area'. I'm doubtful therefore, whether the ceiling fan would be much use to me, either at night or during the day. All it's going to do is pull the hot air close to the ceiling down and mix it with the cooler air closer to the floor. During the winter that's exactly what I want, but not right now.

Ah well, at least there's one good thing about today - the kitchen put out some chocolate sponge cake this afternoon for us to nosh on. They do that from time to time if something doesn't come out quite right or is getting close to its expiry date. I brought a few bowls-full of it home with me. I'm going to make some custard now

Here's a bummer - I can't leave the a/c on at night because it wakes me up each time it cycles on, and if I put in earplugs I don't hear the alarm

105/40.6 on Friday. I was downtown during the hottest part of the day. It's not too bad in the shade... until the merest hint of a breeze blows. Then it's like opening an oven door.

105 again on Saturday, and it's looking like 103 today.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8122969.stm

I'm sorry, I know everything is relative, but I've got to at this one. 32C is 89.6F, or 'Phew Wot a Scorcher sez Londoner Wally Barnes' On the Radio 4 weather forecast tonight, just after the midnight news, the forecaster said that it would be a sticky night and difficult to sleep... at 19C, or 66.2F.

That's about 15°F/8°C colder than it is in my apartment at night.

You just knew, didn't you, that as soon as they put a roof on Centre Court at Wimbledon, Britain would have a 1976-style summer

106/41.1 this afternoon at Camp Mabry. There were a few isolated thunderstorms around earlier this evening and I heard a few rumbles of thunder but none of them came this way. The forecast for Tuesday is a full 10°F cooler than that at 96/35.5. Better get my winter gear out