Can You Cook an Egg on the Sidewalk?

It was officially 120 degrees this afternoon in Sun City according to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).  The station which recorded this is two miles from our house, so the reading is about as accurate as it gets.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around the temperature, and, oh, now a bit anxious about whether our local power grid can sustain all the Valley of the Sun air conditioners going full blast 24 hours a day.  That's the official nickname of the Phoenix area which sits in a valley surrounded by mountains.

NOAA is the national weather service.  It's the origin of all the weather you see on TV whether it's from your local weather person or on The Weather Channel. If you read your weather on your phone, or somewhere else on the internet, in your newspapers, or idly peruse the temperature listed on the local bank marquee, the source of all that info can be traced back to NOAA.

Here's what's really funny.  Although the local weather people make all their forecasts based on the NOAA projections, they are not above moving the temperature up or down a degree or so to make 'better TV'.  Example:  It's more dramatic to proclaim today's temperature is going to be the first 100 degree day of the summer rather than the 99 degrees forecasted by NOAA.  Those television weather wanna bes must be dancing with delight today to have such a juicy story.  I mean 120 degrees doesn't come along every day.  You should see their long and serious air time faces.

Well, I suppose they are right.  This kind of weather is quite dangerous.  We went out before 11 am this morning, and it was 105.  I pity any one trying to cope with these temperatures without air conditioning.  According to Popular Mechanic, the development of residential air conditioning was a result of the post WWII economic boom.  First, window units, and then in the 1970's centralized air conditioning was invented.  This town wouldn't exist without it.

You had to expend a lot of energy to cope with the heat prior to air conditioning.  First, and really foremost, people acclimated.  (Even today, people who are 'year rounders' get cold when the temperature hits 70 degrees.)  Acclimation actually involves physiological changes in your body to adjust to a new climate.  Extreme climates need drastic acclimation.

If you live at high altitudes, you actually make more red blood cells, so you can access more oxygen.  That acclimation takes about three months.  When you live in a place where you can have 23 hours of sunlight during the summer, you learn how to train yourself to sleep when you're tired instead of reacting to the cue of darkness.  In places which experience extreme high temperatures, people actually route blood and open the veins in their extremities as a cooling mechanism.  Conversely, in a cold climate, acclimation involves keeping blood circulating close to the body's core to keep those vital organs warm.  Thus, when the lifers here say, "I'm freezing!" it really means their body's blood flow is circulating in their arms and legs, and their core is cold - even at 70 degrees.

Acclimation is the first tool in the arsenal of how to keep cool in a hot climate.  Architecture was the second weapon.  The older houses here have strategically placed windows and doors to take advantage of air flow.  And all the oldest houses here are built of thick, thick adobe which trap and hold colder air indoors especially with a little help.  Relocation was also an option.  Anyone with a lick of sense and the financial wherewithal went north up into the mountains when it got hot and came back down to the desert floor when the snow started to fly.  

If you had to stay on the valley floor for the summer, one trick to survive the heat was to soak sheets and place them over doors and windows.   Another was to take those wet sheets, wrap them around yourself at night and sleep outside.  It was pretty common for people to get up when it was beastly hot (like it is now) and actually re-soak the sheet, re-wrap it around their body, and then lay back down and return to sleep.  With the advent of residential electricity came the house fan - either on the ceiling or via an oscillating fan sitting on the floor circulating air.  Prior to air conditioning people use the evaporative cooler to cool their houses.  It worked great as long as the humidity stayed low.  All of these electrical appliances must have seemed sent by God.

Another trick to stay reasonably cool was to get up the instant the sky began to turn gray (about 4:30 AM), and do any necessary physical work, then retire during the heat of the day to rest.  You can see this schedule still happening all over this town even in the winter.  Tomorrow morning, the yard crew that services our common area will be running loud, whining blowers and mowers in and around our houses beginning about 6:00 AM.  Every single Wednesday it happens.  When it's this hot, it's hard to complain.

Prior to refrigeration it was hard to keep milk from souring, butter from outright melting, and other fresh foods from becoming dangerous to eat in an impossibly short period of time.  And, lets don't talk about the water. First, it had to be strained through cheesecloth - too much dirt in it to drink, and then you had to wait for the 'mud' to settle to the bottom of the pitcher or bag before drinking it.  The high mineral content must have made the water here almost undrinkable - but take my word for it,  you get excessively thirsty in desert heat, and thus much less picky.

Even today, you have to fight this climate.  Currently, my hands have that 'pruny', wrinkled look - not from being in the water, but from the lack of moisture in the air.  Everyone I know wears some kind of lip stuff - otherwise, your lips crack and bleed.  The tops of my feet have been itching as if I have poison ivy - again the skin is drying out.  I coat myself in a product that's mostly mineral oil designed for skin use after every shower.  When I smooth it on, I can watch it literally sink into my skin. Within 20 seconds you'd never know I'd used any product.  I use eye drops for my dry eyes, and a product to moisturize the inside of my nose. It's an insane and annoying ritual which if not religiously practiced results in cracked and bleeding skin as well as nose bleeds.  And people wonder why I hate the desert.

Circumstances have stranded us here for this bizarre heatwave. However, if you look at the climatic forecasting of NOAA for the next three months, this may be the first heatwave, but it won't be the last.  It's going to be a brutal summer here.  San Diego here I come.  When it was 120 degrees today in Sun City, it was 71 in San Diego.

Tomorrow, we are going to do the 'egg on the sidewalk' thing.  I can hardly wait to see if the heated pavement will really cook it.