From “duh” to “dang, now I know!”

Dear Weather Services: Tell us sumthin’ we don’t know.

And they do.

Excessive Heat Warnings.

Here in Phoenix, Arizona, They amuse. Make me giggle.

“Yeah, dudes. Duh. We know it’s hot! We live in a desert! Triple-digit temps for 5, 6 months in a year.”

Excessive Heat Warnings are like pop-up ads. The content — temperature — may vary but they remain persistent from April to October.

So I barely blinked today when another — yawn –Excessive Heat Warning popped up — for tomorrow, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., temp up to 114 (45.5).

Today’s 110 F. (43.3 C.) . Last weekend was 116 F (46.6 C).

Hardly earth-shattering, 114 (45.5) mañana.

So I did some digging for the “science” behind Excessive Heat Warnings.

The national and local weather services have defined standards and criteria for advisories, watches, warnings and so on. They are location specific.

While it seems otherwise in Phoenix, warnings not randomly tossed out for our anxiety, amusement or terror.

An Excessive Heat Warning locally is “a period of very hot temperatures, even by local standards.” (ha, love it!) “Actions should be taken to lessen the impact of the extreme heat.”

Excessive Heat Warnings are issued per two criterion:

• When heat is notably higher than the norm for that time of year;
• When the temp, though not above a norm, persists for consecutive days that exceed the norm.

So degree and/or duration dictate Excessive Heat Warnings.

Thus is explained tomorrow’s warning.

Based on a handy-dandy daily temp graph online:

On July 19, the temp typically ranges — quote — from 104 (40 C.)  (HA!) and is rarely above 111 (43.8) — unquote. (Double-dip HA!)

So yeah, 114 (45.5), official criterion met.

Heat warnings are a dime a dozen and easily spotted as top headlines or alerts boxed in blazing red.

They don’t alter my actions a whit. It’s damn dry and hot. I know this — painfully all too well, es no bueno for a water baby.

Whether it’s a frostbiting 100 (37.7) or inferno 122 (50 C.), I ain’t gonna slip on Adidas shorts and New Balances and go jog!

Hell, even evening strolls delayed ’til latest possible hour demand grit and determined commitment to exercise! A 107 (41.6 C) at 7 p.m. (discounting island heat) ain’t exactly cool.

What is cool is knowing the science behind Excessive Heat Warnings.

I went from giggling “duh” to “dang, now I know — and am glad for it!”

Does knowledge make ’em any easier to swallow?

Nah.

Fewer “duhs” and giggles perhaps, yeah …

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Hey Donovan, where’s wind to catch?!

Hot.

The ONLY word that usually springs to mind when Americans hear “Arizona.”

They are dead wrong.

Arizona’s also got spectacular forested mountains, a lot of snow, skiing, and bitter cold remote lands as well as scorching desert.

Topography’s not the focus of today’s post.

Southern Arizona — including Phoenix — is desert. It’s got serious heat for sure.

And something else that’s not written about nearly enough.

Stillness.

Unmoving air once the heat arrives.

A hot limp air that enfolds the body. Wraps itself around and tightens. Perhaps imperceptibly at first.

You feel squeezed for air yet can’t say why. Your skin becomes taut. Strains for moisture. Reaches for relief.

You hunger for whatever’s oppressing to lift. It does not. The force presses only more on the body, the lungs, the breath.

Your body trembles. Rattles like bones dried by the desert.

Yet you are not moving. You’re frozen. Frozen?! How can that be!? It’s a blistering dry 100+++ (37.7 C!)

You. Are. Inanimated.

Then the Force who’s sucking your life your life your movement is revealed. Reveals itself really.

Stillness.

Not a wind. Not a breeze. Not a whiff.

Utter. Stoppage. Of. Air. Flow.

“Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind” sang Donovan.

Well, yeah! Were there wind to catch!!

There’s Just Heat. Suffocating Immobilizing Unmoving Heat.

Do not underestimate heat. Heat kills. This is fact. The body on its own terms is not designed to survive brutal deserts.

That’s why you won’t see condos in the Gobi desert! Or, locally, Arizona’s Sonoran desert.

Heat gets all the attention. Deservedly, to a point.

Yet the Stillness is its Evil Sister. The unaddressed secreted wizard behind the curtain. Bolstering a suffocating  hot.

Not a whiff of breeze to “cool” the skin. Haha! As if!

Let me say upfront: Heat is brutal.

Its stillness is, what, the nail in the coffin?

Yet another example of God’s infinite cruelty?!

I mean, c’mon God, your earliest human creations survived in f-ing deserts! You put them there!

So for their survival why not equip them with tiny pop-up fans on their hands?!

I mean, if I’m God, I’m gonna give my “beloved children” a means to a BREEZE while they’re forced to live in and bake in the damn desert that I created!

The unmoving of air in a desert inferno oppresses oppresses oppresses. That needs more airtime — =no pun intended.

There, my work is done. Note: that’s desert, not dessert. Oh what relief in a typo!

Fantastical relief for DESERT residents

I crossed a line. It was cool but not.

Had to happen. Sure as the day is long.

Long and hot. My edit.

Summer is arriving in Phoenix. More precisely summer temps as summer’s official start is June 20. Hit 97 F. (36 C) today, April 24. Inches up to 101 F (38.3 C) in a day or two.

Then it’s a temp free fall — in the opposite direction of gravity. Shit.

Had to happen in my home.

My tiny studio has exactly two sizable windows. One faces east, the other west. Thus my space is bathed in sun from dawn to nightfall.

Circulation is also poor, making it a heat trap. Terrific in winter! Now, no.

I’m a nature girl. A vital factoid to put this post in perspective.

In a residence, I looove open windows. Fresh air. Light. My organic nature and free spirit cannot tolerate confinement or impingements of mother nature.

This in fact has been an issue with past roommates. They’ve gotten on my back for cracking windows or having the thermostat set at 60 (15.5 C).

Roommates and I are a toxic mix. So I’m uber-grateful to be living alone during covid confinement. Had to say that.

To date, I’ve been keeping my screened windows open from waking to bedtime. GOT to see the sky! The light! Breathe air!

Unfortunately, the end is in sight.

Increasingly, the Brutal Phoenix Furnace demands its own lockdown. Staying indoors. Windows ever shut. Curtains drawn. Air-conditioner and fans running 24/7. From now ’til October.

I resist, forestall, push back that sealed-up state with every fiber of my being.

Eventually Phoenix weather wins and I lose. It had to happen and it did.

Late last night. Windows open, two fans blowing. Still I felt uncomfortably heated — promising scant slumber among other discomforts.

So I bucked up to check my indoor temp. 90 degrees (32.2 C). A mere 7-degree difference from the day’s high.

There it was. Had to happen: I shut the windows. Pulled insulating curtains.

And did the dreaded deed. I switched on the air-conditioner.

Set it to 82 degrees. Granted, 82 (27.7 C) is “too hot” by local opinion. Around 70 (21 C) is the going rate in Phoenix.

Me, I set it just enough to take the edge off and save money — ’cause lemme tell you, keeping cool in Phoenix is a VERY PRICEY endeavor.

I hated doing it! Don’t misunderstand. I’m grateful to have a (fairly) functional air-con — though a small one with only one vent — in my space.

Still, turning it on was a pivotal moment.

• Don’t like air-conditioners to begin with.
• It warns that the heat is rolling in like a troop of heartless whacked-out unrelenting soldiers.
• A weather lockdown is imminent.
• Paired with this virus lockdown, it ain’t pretty. It’s purgatory.

Last year marked my first full-on unchartered summer in Phoenix. I regret not giving this epic experience its due by journal or blog.

In truth, it was dreadful that I’d decided to not be here this summer or in any other — a mix of escapist road trips + cross-country relocation.

Well, that got screwed up by a virus and hysterical lockdown.

So I’m stuck.

To cope, to survive, I truly should learn from last summer’s mistakes and this summer express myself, write more, record the experiences. Would also help lighten a mountain of stressors and losses I shoulder.

I’d title this coming 6-month chapter perhaps:

The Adventures of a Water Baby in a Phoenix Furnace

Baking a Water Baby in a Phoenix Fry Pan

Woes of a Water Baby in a Phoenix Fry-Off

How to Survive Phoenix Summers as a Fish Outta Water

Whatever. I crossed a line last night. Studio sealed shut, air-con switched on. A turning point that was cool(ing) but not. It’s downhill from here. If only it were this downhill!

How to Survive a Phoenix Summer: Astral Travel