It's getting hot in there.

May 22, 2016 1:38 PM

Newsfilter: India just set a new all-time record high temperature — 123.8 degrees
posted by analogue (64 comments total)

Holy mother of Dao, that's insane. I remember the feeling of unbearable heat in 110 degree weather in the desert- I actually cannot imagine that being 13 degrees hotter
posted by thebotanyofsouls at 1:40 PM on May 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

That's downright unnecessary.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:41 PM on May 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

*cracks cold beer*
posted by jonmc at 1:47 PM on May 22, 2016

Not great, Bob.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:51 PM on May 22, 2016 [17 favorites]

I remember the feeling of unbearable heat in 110 degree weather in the desert- I actually cannot imagine that being 13 degrees hotter

I was at a ballgame in Vegas where the mercury hit 107, and I only managed to last seven innings. Felt like a hot wet blanket was on top of me.
posted by jonmc at 1:53 PM on May 22, 2016

This is fine.
posted by ArmandoAkimbo at 1:55 PM on May 22, 2016 [63 favorites]

I've been in Phoenix when it was 115 & 117. It seemed uninhabitable. I recall being shocked then, 20 years ago, that people chose to inhabit such a place. over 120? People are going to have to migrate.

I'm thinking buy investment property in the Yukon now. Asia? I dunno -- you move up into the Russian tundra & methane bubbles might blow up beneath you. I guess the Tibetan plateau will be nice & temperate here in a short while.
posted by Devils Rancher at 1:56 PM on May 22, 2016

51 degrees is crazy hot , I think the hottest I've been in is 38 which was unbearable.
posted by Harpocrates at 2:01 PM on May 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

We were sitting around in 125 degrees in southern Iraq one day -- outside, because it was the weekend and everyone was in their quarters, and that meant the combined air conditioning was pulling too much power and the generator died, and if you're in a metal box with no air conditioning... well, it's better to be out in the sun than that, and if there's a little shade, then even better. And suddenly, it hit me. It was 52 degrees Celsius, which meant it was closer to the boiling point of water than the freezing point. Normal room temperature is around 20 degrees Celsius. That's a fifth of the way from freeze to boil, and we were past half. I genuinely don't know how people live in conditions like that.
posted by Etrigan at 2:01 PM on May 22, 2016 [14 favorites]

Went to Death Valley once, when it was 108°F. Mmmm. *ppprrrrr prrrrr*
posted by Melismata at 2:05 PM on May 22, 2016

Curious what the heat index is at 9% humidity and 123 degrees Fahrenheit. Fortunately 9% seems well below humidity levels that are lethal to humans, still hot as a mofo tho.
posted by Annika Cicada at 2:16 PM on May 22, 2016

I had to drive from Yuma to Tucson one afternoon when the entire state was setting records. It was over 120 in the desert I was crossing. To make things even more fun, our company bigwigs were too cheap to put AC in our trucks, even though we work in an area where it's hot as hell for several months. I remember that I could only keep the wing windows on the truck open; if I rolled down the main windows it was a blast furnace and completely unbearable. I had to keep a wet bandana on my head. I went through a gallon of water in less than two hours.

I can only imagine what it's like for the people in India, many of whom don't have electricity let alone AC.
posted by azpenguin at 2:16 PM on May 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

Let alone water.

I guess we can all move to cooler norther latitudes. Assuming they aren't on fire.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:24 PM on May 22, 2016

Yes, but it's a dry heat.
posted by PenDevil at 2:25 PM on May 22, 2016 [10 favorites]

I find myself wondering that 51 degrees feels like. I've spent most of my life living in very hot, very dry places, but even so the hottest I've experienced was 48. And I find I don't feel that much of a subjective distinction between anything above about 42 - it always seems to me like it maxes out at "very very unpleasant" above that range. Like 40 feels much much worse than 36, but realistically 44 doesn't feel (to me) any worse than 40. But I wonder whether that's just a consequence of restricted range? I don't experience a high-40s day very often, and when I do the previous days have been less hot, and the day afterwards is also usually less hot. I just don't have many opportunities to really compare 44 to 48 in a way that makes the two easily comparable. So maybe if I experienced lots of 50 degree days I'd start getting a finer grained distinction of what the 40s feel like, and then I'd be able to make some kind of sensible comparison to 51. But really, all I can do is sort of abstractly imagine it's similar to 48 but probably worse?
posted by langtonsant at 2:31 PM on May 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

I do not miss this kind of heat/humidity. I was born in New Delhi, India. And then my wonderful parents made the decision to move to Dallas, Texas, USA. Thankfully, after 18 years in Dallas, we made the decision to move to Niagara Falls, Ontario Canada. I much prefer the cold, ice, and snow. You can always bundle up with extra layers, but there's only so much you can remove before you start to break any public indecency laws.
posted by Fizz at 2:32 PM on May 22, 2016 [35 favorites]

I grew up in Phoenix and was there the day in June 1990 that the mercury hit 122°. I was running errands for work all day in my a/c-less pickup in stop-and-go traffic on the freeway. I felt like a piece of jerky when I got home.
posted by djeo at 2:40 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Joke as we do about "dry heat" it's what allows perspiration to cool our bodies, maybe not to comfort and yeah maybe at "oh god this is fucking unbearable" levels, but when it comes to heat above 95 F, humidity is the difference between discomfort and potential death.
posted by Annika Cicada at 2:44 PM on May 22, 2016 [17 favorites]

Fizz, I completely concur.

"...there's only so much you can remove before you start to break any public indecency laws."

And you're still broiling! There's only so much your sweat glands can do for you, even then.

As a kid in Milwaukee in the 1970s, I got used to hearing reports on the 10pm news in summer about how many vulnerable people died every day during the yearly heat waves in Chicago. For some reason, those were rare where we were, though Chicago is only ~60 miles to the south. I can't fathom how many people are suffering in that heat in India today.

We're screwed, aren't we? ::sigh::
posted by droplet at 2:45 PM on May 22, 2016

I spent 2009-mid 2013 working in a pipe factory in Oklahoma that was basically just a giant un-air-conditioned warehouse. Every damn Summer the temp would exceed 110 with a healthy dose of humidity and we had four big forges running from 7 AM to 5 PM. Ten hour shifts for 5-6 solid weeks. I've never sweat that much in my life. It was a constant battle to re-hydrate, changing refilled bottles of water stashed in the freezer along with at least two 32-oz Gatorades a day to replenish electrolytes. Despite showering both before and after my shift, my legs would break out in a horrible, painful heat rash that required antibiotics to clear up (when you're messing around with pieces of pipe that weigh up to 120 lbs, you have to wear work pants, steel toed boots, and work gloves). Deplorable work conditions for $14/hr with a total asshole of a boss. But I was going back to school and taking night classes and it was a steady gig that allowed me to pay out of pocket.

Now I work in a cubicle at a university and people have thermostat wars that even recently elicited an e-mail chain and while I like my colleagues quite a bit, it definitely made me laugh angrily and roll my eyes.

But at the end of the day I went to bed every night in an air-conditioned house with a ceiling fan running on high. So yeah, my heart goes out to the folks that suffer from heatwaves. I wouldn't wish that kind of misery on anyone.
posted by Ufez Jones at 2:49 PM on May 22, 2016 [10 favorites]

123 degrees! Water flashing into steam - people must have been killed instantly.

Oh, you mean 583 degrees Rankine.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:50 PM on May 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

jonmc: "*cracks cold beer*"

You drink the beer. I'll be in the fridge.
posted by Splunge at 2:58 PM on May 22, 2016 [10 favorites]

Hello from toasty Delhi. One of the things that struck me a few years ago and continues to amaze me today is that we appear to have forgotten how to dress for summer. A hundred years ago everyone in the city would have been in loose-fitting cotton clothes and would have a turban or a dupatta to shield their heads and eyes. Nobody seems to do that any more. Never mind turbans, there aren't even any caps, hats, bandannas, nothing. I just don't understand it.

And then the JEANS. Why are there any people at all wearing jeans in 40C+ weather? ALL OF US ARE MAD

jonmc: "*cracks cold beer*"

Saturday evening I went to get some and was greeted by a sign reminding us that there were no alcohol sales on Buddha Purnima. It was enough to test a fellow's ahimsa, let me tell you.
posted by vanar sena at 3:03 PM on May 22, 2016 [98 favorites]

Next door, same heat wave: Graves, foundations and hospitals get ready in Karachi. Also Pakistan digs mass graves as heat wave looms.
posted by Nelson at 3:03 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

When I was in high school in Dallas (MacArthur! Go Cards!) I was one of the editors for our yearbook. Our yearbook always included prom and a bunch of year end events, so as a result, editors and staff were required to stay an additional week and a half in the summer time. That itself is not a huge sacrifice to ask students to make, we were dedicated and loved what we did. The sacrifice is that the district shut down all the air-conditioning for the high school as soon as the last day was over.

Me and about five other year book editors, photographers, staff, etc, we would sit in a boiling hot class room with no air conditioning. Temperatures routinely hit 110- 119+ F. We did manage to get the football team to wheel in those giant stadium fans and place them inside of our room. At one point, we would soak our t-shirts in water and stick them inside of the freezer and then put them on as we finished our layouts. Three summers were spent this way. Not something I'd ever want to do again.
posted by Fizz at 3:08 PM on May 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

When I was in Delhi years ago, it was in June and the temperature was 45 Celsius. In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't know celsius well enough to understand that was the equivalent of 113 F. I was on a shoestring budget so my room didn't have AC, or even a real window, just a ceiling fan. I would take a cold shower right before bed, and then run and jump into bed, still wet, under the fan (of course then I also got a cold). Almost every night, there would be a power cut and I would wake up, sweating under the sarong I used as a sheet.

I had planned to go to Rajasthan after that, but scrapped those plans and quite literally headed for the hills (Ladakh).
posted by lunasol at 3:38 PM on May 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Actually as much as I hate hot climates (why yes, I am Canadian!) the beer thing is one of the nice aspects. I found I could drink beer all day and never get beyond a bit buzzed from sweating it out and instinctively balancing it with water.
posted by mannequito at 3:39 PM on May 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

That... has not been my experience of day drinking in hot weather
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:13 PM on May 22, 2016 [30 favorites]

Hottest place I've ever been is the San Joaquin Valley (California). It was like what I'd imagine to be baked on a flat rock. So that was dry heat.

And then again Washington, DC, summers; poaching from about June to September. So how anyone can tolerate this heat is beyond my spectrum of experience. Although as it's pointed out in the article, people die in the thousands. The solutions we take for granted are in stark contrast. The weather is literally murder.
posted by datawrangler at 4:23 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

The 2015 heat wave only killed 2500 people.
posted by sneebler at 4:34 PM on May 22, 2016

Why do people not build underground cooling pits and erect more shade? I never understood how our planet deals with heat...
posted by rebent at 5:02 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

I could've sworn it was,

No-one goes out in the noonday sun,
But mad dogs and Englishm'n

...by Kipling, about India, but the Internet informs me that I'm wrong.
posted by clawsoon at 5:07 PM on May 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Annika Cicada: "Fortunately 9% seems well below humidity levels that are lethal to humans, still hot as a mofo tho."

Ya at that temperature and humidity it doesn't even feel like you are sweating the sweat evaporates so fast. Especially if there is any sort of breeze.
posted by Mitheral at 5:22 PM on May 22, 2016

Why do people not build underground cooling pits

In a lot of places, a pit would be below sea level or the water table, and thus would start to fill with water. Rising sea levels don't help that. A lot of places with really high populations are expected to be below sea level by the end of this century. (Warning: Autoplay video on that link.)
posted by limeonaire at 5:23 PM on May 22, 2016

The week I moved away from Texas, there was a several-day stretch of 100+ temps, with the highest being 116. My last day at work was that 116-degree day. On the walk from my office to the parking garage -- just across the street -- it felt like my face was melting off. It was literally painful to walk under the sun in that heat. 123.8 isn't that much hotter, but I appreciate not having to test how different it feels.
posted by mudpuppie at 5:47 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

They do. I've also always wanted to experience one of these.

Older buildings in hot places are much better built to handle the weather without AC. It's not fun and you spend a lot of the time laying around, but you can make it. It's the cheap quickly-constructed buildings of today that are just unescapable hells.
posted by Stilling Still Dreaming at 6:29 PM on May 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

One of the striking things I noticed in Chennai, India was how most of the really hard physical labor was done from midnight to 4AM, at sites lit with intense LED lighting.

Also, any physical work if it was done by an upper class professional (e.g. car washing, repainting a wall, et cetera.)

Traditional clothing was also pervasive. Nobody hustled. Everyone walked a very careful mosey. And the "paperless office" was not particularly established. Since the only heat sources in a 20th century office were the people, that made a whole lot of sense.
posted by ocschwar at 6:38 PM on May 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

One of the striking things I noticed in Chennai, India was how most of the really hard physical labor was done from midnight to 4AM, at sites lit with intense LED lighting.

The same for social events and going out. Everyone waits until the darkness sets in and then they head out to the bars. Most people find a way to stay indoors in the shade, near a fan, or if you're lucky enough inside with air-conditioning.

But even then, you have to deal with the rolling black/brown outs. So there's no guarentee that you'll have air-conditining even if you're lucky enough to have a unit in your home or office.
posted by Fizz at 6:43 PM on May 22, 2016

I drove through Death Valley during a heat wave once. 128F by the time I made it to Furnace Creek around 5pm, though the high had been 135F, according to the sign there. The lack of humidity, combined with the ac in my vehicle, made it bearable, but yeah, temperatures over 120F are dangerous.
posted by eviemath at 6:49 PM on May 22, 2016

Hmm, maybe that was 125 after a high of 128. That is more consistent with the temperature records that I am finding upon searching the internet.
posted by eviemath at 6:58 PM on May 22, 2016

eviemath, I'm sweating just thinking about driving in those conditions. The anxiety and the paranoia of what might happen were my vehicle to stop functioning in that kind of heat and how dangerous those conditions would make such an event.

Was thinking, that it would make a lot of sense for people who live in those kinds of temperatures to have some emergency preparedness kits in the back of their car. We do the same up here every winter: blankets, flash-light, collapsible snow-shovel, energy bars, extra mittens and toque. Would definitely be a smart idea to have some extra water bottles in the back of the trunk and one of those ice/cool packs that you can crack open by crushing.
posted by Fizz at 7:10 PM on May 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Fizz, people do, I'm told. I made sure my radiator fluid was topped up before driving through Death Valley, and I carried plenty of water.

People must get used to the heat though? There's a small town at Furnace Creek, and I saw two or three people (teenagers or early 20s and in good shape, admittedly) out running!!
posted by eviemath at 7:29 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Extreme heatwaves could push Gulf climate beyond human endurance, study shows

The Gulf in the Middle East, the heartland of the global oil industry, will suffer heatwaves beyond the limit of human survival if climate change is unchecked, according to a new scientific study.

The extreme heatwaves will affect Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha and coastal cities in Iran as well as posing a deadly threat to millions of Hajj pilgrims in Saudi Arabia, when the religious festival falls in the summer. The study shows the extreme heatwaves, more intense than anything ever experienced on Earth, would kick in after 2070 and that the hottest days of today would by then be a near-daily occurrence.

Hold on to your butts.
posted by Existential Dread at 7:39 PM on May 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

the 'dry heat' thing where I live isn't so bad, you stand under a tree and a ~100F-in-the-shade temperature is just comfortably warm, something you'd love to feel on a cold winter morning.

on a bike, the hot days are perfectly cyclable as long as you stay hydrated -- as mentioned above you don't even get all that sweaty as it's wicked off of you instantly.

Overnight lows in the summer here are ~70F, i.e. perfect.

now, when I was in Maryland for a summer, and Tokyo for a decade, I got to experience the not-dry heat.

Holy crap, unlike the California heat, the water molecules carry that heat to you --shade, nighttime the heat stays in the air -- and prevent your own sweat from cooling you off.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 8:05 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

As vanar sena said, there are NO hats to be found in Delhi. One 46ºC day there I'd been hunting for a hat, any hat, and finally asked a man in a nice Panama where he got it - the answer was London.
posted by anadem at 9:24 PM on May 22, 2016

No-one goes out in the noonday sun,
But mad dogs and Englishm'n
...by Kipling, about India, but the Internet informs me that I'm wrong.

It's Noel Coward, for anyone curious.

IIRC, there was an ex-president/dictator of Singapore who hailed air conditioning as the single most important invention of the 20th century, enabling his country to move from poverty to prosperity in just a few decades...
posted by Diablevert at 10:36 PM on May 22, 2016

Stilling Still Dreaming: " It's the cheap quickly-constructed buildings of today that are just unescapable hells."

Cheap and/or quickly constructed isn't the problem as much as modern buildings tend to be climate inappropriate. The worst design detail? Large southern glazings with no shading overhangs. But they also usually check off most of the bad hot design checklist like no cross air flow, poor insulation, east-west orientation, no porches, no summer kitchen, no screens, no screened in porches, no induced draw air flow and no seasonal shade.
posted by Mitheral at 10:42 PM on May 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

While in Iran in 2007, I visited a number of traditional houses equipped with badgir (windcatchers) that passed incoming air over deep pools and incorporated other technologies that controlled climate year-round. They were blissfully cool, while back out on the street I was nearly passing out in the heat. I'm sure they would be less effective in humid climates, but would work well anyplace with great temperature variations and low humidity. The problem is, that sort of knowledge seems to be dying out everywhere. It's so much easier to design a junk house and install aircon.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 11:44 PM on May 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

Mitheral:But they also usually check off most of the bad hot design checklist like no cross air flow, poor insulation, east-west orientation, no porches, no summer kitchen, no screens, no screened in porches, no induced draw air flow and no seasonal shade.

I'd add "ceilings too low" to this excellent list.

Speaking of air flow - before the advent of air conditioning, large evaporative air cooler fans were a staple of North Indian homes and they did a stellar job keeping homes comfortable during the pre-monsoon dry heat. My grandparents' huge old five-bedroom home had a massive cooler fan that managed to keep a lovely cool breeze flowing through every room in the house.

Between air conditioners and changing family lifestyles (everyone had to sleep with their bedroom doors and windows open, if not all together in one room), the big fans have pretty much disappeared now and all you can get on the market are cheap plastic things with tiny exhaust fans that barely cool one room. You can still see the big coolers hanging off windows in some older houses though.
posted by vanar sena at 12:11 AM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Food can be kept cool using a pot-in-pot chiller. I am sure I read somewhere that this idea was used to cool water as well.
posted by asok at 2:04 AM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Evaporative coolers are discouraged in places like Arizona now because they use so much water. I liked them growing up, the added humidity was welcome.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:46 AM on May 23, 2016

At 78 degrees I start to wilt and faint. I would probably die.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 4:26 AM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

no summer kitchen

I visited some extended family in northeast Thailand last summer and was really enamored by the outdoor kitchen. If I remember correctly, the fridge, dishware, silverware, kettle and rice cooker were inside, but the actual stove was outside, with sinks both indoors and outdoors.

It just made so much sense from both a weather and smell/mess perspective; my aunt stir-fried some water spinach and it was so nice to come back inside the house with no lingering heat or smells. I cook a lot of Chinese and Thai food at home in my enclosed NYC kitchen and it would be great to be able to cook outdoors in the dog days of July and August.
posted by andrewesque at 6:46 AM on May 23, 2016

fwiw...
Arctic Sea Ice Goes Far Beyond Record Low Extent for May
posted by kliuless at 7:47 AM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

IIRC, there was an ex-president/dictator of Singapore who hailed air conditioning as the single most important invention of the 20th century, enabling his country to move from poverty to prosperity in just a few decades...

From Vox: Singapore's founding father thought air conditioning was the secret to his country's success
posted by andrewesque at 8:34 AM on May 23, 2016

It's hot enough that the roads are starting to melt.
posted by evilangela at 9:10 AM on May 23, 2016

I moved to my home on the greatest and most frigid of the Great Lakes during the heat wave of 1995, in which people in my old neighborhood were dying.

Sometimes I imagine being very old in the nursing home, and watching this town grow and grow due to my figurative descendants.
posted by RedEmma at 9:33 AM on May 23, 2016

A couple of observations on summer heat in India.

1. I lived in the US for over a decade and I am currently living in India. For some reason, the moment I step out in the sun, I got a royal headache. I mean, instantly! This happened only in the US even when it is 72 degrees! However, when I step out in the sun in India, no more instant headaches! Maybe it's got to do with changing intensity of the sun's rays as we get closer to the poles from the tropics?

2. What kills me in India is the humidity plus heat. Mumbai and Chennai are probably God's gaint pressure cookers? he keeps them boiling fro a good part of the year :(
posted by TheIndiaGuy at 9:35 AM on May 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

I don't just feel uncomfortable in high heat (defined as over 80), I get physically ill. Doesn't matter how hydrated or rested I am. My insides liquefy and I'll just leave the result of that to your imagination. I live pretty far north - Milwaukee - and I honestly don't know what I'm going to do if 80 becomes the norm for 6 months out of the year. Just... not go outside I guess. It's 79 degrees outside right now, and I'm thanking god I didn't work from home today.
posted by AFABulous at 10:08 AM on May 23, 2016

1. I lived in the US for over a decade and I am currently living in India. For some reason, the moment I step out in the sun, I got a royal headache. I mean, instantly! This happened only in the US even when it is 72 degrees! However, when I step out in the sun in India, no more instant headaches! Maybe it's got to do with changing intensity of the sun's rays as we get closer to the poles from the tropics?

It's the shock of leaving a powerfully AC'd space and going out in the heat. I spent one week in Chennai, and without AC, I had to really be careful with what I was doing, and keep water with me, but no headaches.
posted by ocschwar at 12:16 PM on May 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

But they also usually check off most of the bad hot design checklist like no cross air flow, poor insulation, east-west orientation, no porches, no summer kitchen, no screens, no screened in porches, no induced draw air flow and no seasonal shade.

I'd add "ceilings too low" to this excellent list.

I know that not everyone can afford it, but many homes in India are built with floors that are made of marble. It retains warmth in the winter and coolness during the day and evening hours.

Never mind turbans, there aren't even any caps, hats, bandannas, nothing. I just don't understand it.

Business opportunity?
posted by Fizz at 12:34 PM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I guess the Tibetan plateau will be nice & temperate here in a short while.

Invest in shore front property now!
posted by adept256 at 2:08 PM on May 23, 2016

Invest in shore front property now!

We jest, but I literally picked my current city and my living situation (and will evaluate future moves) based in part on climate change considerations, including rainfall projections, sea-level rise, and likelihood of forest fires.

I hate that I have to do that.

On the other hand, the wily cuttlefish may take up where we leave off upon our extinction.
posted by Existential Dread at 2:30 PM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Global warming is accelerating
posted by kliuless at 7:34 AM on May 25, 2016