It’s 97 degrees and with the heat index it feels like 103 this afternoon. There is an Excessive Heat Warning today. I was going to replace the sun room door jambs weather stripping today—but decided against it. I’d have to turn off the air conditioning and leave the door open. I did that yesterday when replacing weather stripping elsewhere in the house.
It takes a while to cool back down.
I’m reminded of working as a survey crew assistant way back when, working on new asphalt airport runway construction sites. That gets pretty hot.
On a 90-degree day, the asphalt temperature can get up to 110 degrees. Now imagine you have to work next to the asphalt paving machine. The asphalt mix usually arrives at the job site at a temperature of 275 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
I don’t recall ever seeing anyone pass out from the heat on those job sites. But it was awfully hard to drag yourself up and down the runway.
Temperatures today are nowhere near what it is on an asphalt paving job—but if you don’t have to work out there, it’s a lot safer to stay indoors with the air conditioning on than to venture out for very long in 100-degree temperatures.
You can risk heat exhaustion or heat stroke on days like this. Read about the different kinds of heat stress at the University of Iowa web site.
And from the time I started writing this post to the time I stopped, the temperature got up to 105 degrees with the heat index.
Stay cool.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 