Floridians brave Extreme Danger heat levels

by philg

Following up on Ireland in the European heat wave… the latest map from the New York Times shows that Palm Beach County is suffering from 125-degree heat:

If it gets even 1 degree hotter, we might be into the “Extreme Danger” zone:

Due to a toilet trip lever failure (everything in this 20-year-old house seems to have been designed to last for exactly 20 years), we cautiously ventured out to Home Depot in the local strip mall (Palm Beach Gardens; 4 miles from the ocean). We decided to eat lunch at one of the high-end restaurants there and found that these two people had chosen to flirt with Danger at an outdoor table rather than enjoy the comfortable indoor air-conditioned environment where they’d received their food. Not shown: the person on the right (pronouns unknown) was wearing massive fuzzy bunny slippers, ordinarily marketed for use in frigid New England winters.

After stopping into PetSmart, we passed by a table-service restaurant in which a Floridian is wearing long pants and a sweater in what the New York Times says might be 125-degree heat:

Here’s what the Google says about afternoon temps in the heat dome over the strip mall:

Fortunately, I hope to be escaping to comfortable 93-degree weather in Oshkosh, Wisconsin for next week’s EAA AirVenture:

18 thoughts on “Floridians brave Extreme Danger heat levels”

  1. Panera is dead to me after they discontinued chipotle chicken sandwich 15 years ago! We were probably buying 2-4 a week.

    • All restaurant choices in our household are delegated to the 7- and 9-year-olds.

      In other news, I fixed the toilet! The main challenge is that the threads are reversed (left to tighten). $11.27 to Home Depot, plus 1% tax to Palm Beach County and 6% tax to support fascism/tyranny (the state government led by Ron DeSantis).

  2. Colder then usual summer, maybe except for a week and a half at the end of June, in both the North East USA and the Caribbean, based on personal observations.
    Of course one hot week was hailed as “hottest on the record ever” by the media.
    Lithium-Ion batteries still can not complete gasoline and toxic diesel so we can expect US economy loosing large chunk of value after complete transition to electric in the bright future.

  3. Look closely at the first pictures, of the 2 folks at Panera. What is their meal of choice in this 90+ degree killer heat? One looks like is having Broccoli or Mac&Chees soup, while the other is having warm pasta!

    There is only one way to stop this heatwave and climate change, an emergency order from our government: no more warm food, especially during summertime!

  4. The NYT map seems to be for heat index (and not temperature). Don’t know how reliable this index is, but I felt that same temperature in humid Houston is lot more uncomfortable than in dry New Mexico desert, so this “feels like” temperature seems directionally correct.

    • This is beyond Orwellian. Press and #science tells us how we should feel the weather. If you feel weather differently you are weather-ist.
      I’ll go with dumb thermometer readings and my own feelings, thank you very much.

      How long before the only thermometers that are legal are programmable ones, with party approved air temperature readings?

    • A common “heat wave” temperature/humidity situation in South Florida is 95 degrees and 70 percent humidity. This yields a heat index of 123 degrees in https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/heatindex.shtml

      How reliable is this? A common summer temperature in Death Valley is 123 degrees with essentially no humidity (10%).

      Without taking special precautions, people who are outdoors in Death Valley in the summer will suffer serious medical problems and/or death.

      So the NYT number is reliable if you also believe that people who venture outdoors run a serious risk of death nearly every day in the summer anywhere in South Florida.

    • I regularly work in the desert outside Las Vegas for a few days, often in summer. 120/10 desert and 95/70 Florida or Midwest days yield similar outdoor working conditions, although the 120/10 desert is less taxing IMHO.

      I’ll note I have yet to die in either, so I’d say you may be right to question the NYT’s reliability.

    • @CalSK, when you die, we all will eventually, hopefully, your death won’t flag as “climate change” related given that you work in the desert.

    • I have worked outside (changed tires on a truck using only mechanical aids and no power tools) in Southern Florida Everglades area in 95+/70+ and felt OK if not great. In Miami Beach I also regularly walked to / from parking spot for 2 miles and jogged/exercised on path near the beach in similar weather conditions and felt fine. I am rather overweight and do not particularly like hot/warm weather. I love skiing, ice fishing and outside exercise in freezing ( down to -4 Fahrenheit) air temperatures. Air temperature feel is subjective.

  5. Our thoughts and prayers are with you, Phil.

    On letting the kids choose, kids typically like sweet, salty and fried, all of which lead to all sorts of diseases later in life like diabetes. Maybe you or the misus should chose, assuming your preferences are better? They might be thankful when you are gone.

    • jdc: Thanks for the parenting/life advice. I’m confused as to what prompted it, however. The 7-year-old’s restaurant choice for lunch today was Panera. Of the places in https://www.altontowncenter.com/ what would you have chosen instead that would have been more healthful? (We were constrained as to location because of the need to visit Home Depot and we had only about 30 minutes allocated to lunch, though perhaps we could have stretched it to 45.)

      [Unlike the neighbors with the true dream kitchens, we seldom go out to any restaurant for any meal. The kids might eat 1-3 meals per week out of the house. They’re entitled to “free” (taxpayer-funded) breakfast and lunch at the public school, but they prefer to each food from home instead.]

  6. Here is a map of wet bulb temperatures across the US, with 35° C considered to be the upper limit of survivability for six hours of exposure:

    https://news.climate.columbia.edu/wp-content/themes/sotp-foundation/dataviz/heat-humidity-map/

    The Miami area appears to have a daily forecasted high today of 29°; Palm Springs, CA’s is 33°.

    Temperatures hot enough to kill people are a real thing, even if NYTimes is exaggerating; e.g. over 60,000 people reportedly died from heat in Europe last year:

    https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230717/Impact-of-the-2022-European-heat-wave-Over-60000-deaths-recorded.aspx

    I suspect the magnitude of the problem won’t fully hit most people until their own friends and/or family are affected.

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