It's wickedly hot!

Discussion in 'Off Topic' started by Irena M, Jun 24, 2008.

  1. Irena M

    Irena M Well-Known Member

    I know, I know, you're saying yeah, you live in Palm Springs, but even this weather is getting really crazy!
    We've had heat advisories off and on all this week. It's been between 116 to 118 every day. Crazy!
    I would be so lost without an air conditioner.
     
  2. Alexx

    Alexx Well-Known Member

    46-48 °C :)

    I allways thought Fahrenheit invented his scale for all normally possible air temperatures to be between 0 and 100 °F (-18 - 38 °C). I see he has never been to Palm Springs :).
     
  3. Irena M

    Irena M Well-Known Member

    They just showed on TV frying an actual egg on the street.
     
  4. petri

    petri Well-Known Member

    Well for the balance we have to light the grill here in order to fry anything outdoors. :D
    It´s approx. 12 degrees Celsius up here in the northern corner of the Europe... :cry:
     
  5. Irena M

    Irena M Well-Known Member

    That's cold! :( I hope it warms up for you soon.

    I'm "somewhat" used to this weather. 60°F degrees is cold for me now.
    Looks like it's 84°F in Prague.
     
  6. laylah

    laylah Well-Known Member

    And here in the North of England it rains....then the wind blows.....then it rains some more.......and we all complain about the British summer and moan that it's too cold
    until the sun does shine, then everyone rushes out half naked, gets burned and complains it's much too hot! Happy days :lol:
     
  7. Ark1tec

    Ark1tec Well-Known Member

    I could t live in that kind of intense heat, period.
     
  8. Ark1tec

    Ark1tec Well-Known Member

    repeat could not.
     
  9. The Animal

    The Animal Well-Known Member

    Just be glad none of you had to work on the diesel genarators at a drilling rig in Ft. Stockston Texas. There was four engines total on this all electric rig. Inside the engine rooms approx. 120° to 130° F. Then when you have to walk in front of the radiators you get blasted with 195° F. air. This particular rig is surounded by hills. Standing away 100 feet from the engine room approx 105°°f. to 108° f.

    Going back to the road from the rig at about 1/4 mile away approx 98°f and have a breeze. What a difference.

    That was můj two cents worth.

    Jody
     
  10. Irena M

    Irena M Well-Known Member

    Dang! That's hot!
    I had to run some errands today. When I walked out of stores that had air conditioning, it was like walking into an oven when I walked back to my car.
     
  11. Marci

    Marci Member

    no jedine ti doporucim se prestehovat k nam dolu na pobrezi do Orange County , cim bliz k oceanu tim lip, treba Huntington Beach mela 86F ale o 10 mil na sever uz bylo 99F a LA 103F. Nebo se nastehuj do bazenu pres leto. Jinak zdravim do Palm Springs a vydrz v zari bude lip
     
  12. Irena M

    Irena M Well-Known Member

    Ano, nastehuji se do bazenu pres leto. :D
     
  13. bouncingczech

    bouncingczech Active Member

    The highest temperature I experienced was 126 F (52 C) driving near Yuma, Arizona, on the way from Mexico. But strangely, after it hits 110 it no longer matters, it's just hot and air conditioned space is the only way to go...
     
  14. bouncingczech

    bouncingczech Active Member

    Here's a rather stupid weather observation. Why does temperature FEEL different in the US then in Europe? Here's an example. I was driving with my sister from Mammoth Mountain to Yosemite one summer - September it was. The temperature in Mammoth (which is at 2400 m or 7,900 feet asl) was around 70 F or 21 C so we put on shorts. After climbing to Tuolumne Meadows (in a car) which is only 200m higher the temperature dropped to around 0 c or 32 F. We took a short hike there, YET we were not cold even in our shorts...By a comparison, I was at Krkonose in April this year, it was about 5-10 C and I was freezing my shapely butt off! Is it humidity? Or what?
     
  15. Irena M

    Irena M Well-Known Member

    Sounds like humidity played a part.
     
  16. Sova

    Sova Well-Known Member

    There are a number of other possible factors, as well, e.g. wind, cloud cover, snow cover, relative inclination of the sun, etc. In short, the apparent temperature doesn't depend only on the ambient air temperature (this causes heat transfer to/from the skin via conduction), but also on wind (via convection), and incident sun light (via radiation).

    Radiative heat transfer will depend first on the sun's apparent height in the sky, which depends on season, latitude and time of day. Assuming the dates in Sept. and Apr. were the same numbered day, and approx the same time of day, this should give an equivalent height of the sun for the points in Yosemite and Krkonose.

    Snow cover would reflect extra sunlight on you, making you feel hotter, yet would probably decrease the surrounding air temperature making the difference between air temperature and apparent temperature perhaps more obvious.

    Cloud cover, of course, adds to the atmospheric absorption of solar radiation, so you have to consider the relative cloud cover of the two days.

    Altitude is also an issue, since solar radiation is attenuated/absorbed by the atmosphere. At higher altitude, more solar radiation falls on you, all things being equal. However, the air density tends to be lower at higher altitudes, so there is less conductive heat exchange given fewer air molecules to interact. In this case, the altitude of Sněžka, the highest point in the Krkonoše, is approx. 1602 m (~5280 ft.) compared to 2400 m (7900 ft.) at Mammoth. I haven't (and won't) do the rigorous math, but from personal experience, I would think that at these altitudes, the higher, the colder.

    The moral of the story, when you ask such a question on a forum frequented by a scientist (particularly one who's too lazy to do a full analysis), you'll get a long, drawn-out, vague, incomprehensible answer to a question you thought was simple. :lol:
     
  17. wer

    wer Well-Known Member

    It's matter of winds, I think. The winds in the Czech Republic are cold since they stably come from the cold North Sea. The winds from the Pacific are relatively warm, I guess.
     
  18. bouncingczech

    bouncingczech Active Member

    Very good! It makes a lot of sense. Of course, wind plays a huge role, but on the two separate occasions the winds were calm. That means the other factors you so eloquently described here were causes. Roughly speaking, the air temperature drops about 6C for very 1,000 ft of elevation. I experienced this in reverse when I descended to the bottom of Grand Canyon. At the rim, we had a bit of snow and ice and close to freezing temperature, but at the bottom we were sweltering in temperature in upper 80's.

    But by far the biggest factor affecting weather where I live is the ocean. I am about 10 km from the coast and almost daily can see the cool marine layer move inland late afternoon and then move back during the morning. Irena lives behind a couple of mountain ranges further inland. These mountains prevent the cool ocean air from reaching into the Coachella Valley where Palm Springs is. But every so often, the winds reverse direction and hot, dry air blows to us from the East. This means we get Irena's weather here and the increased risk of wildfires.
    Is this too much information?
     
  19. Sova

    Sova Well-Known Member

    The winds off the Pacific can actually be rather cold. The north California coastal waters are rather cold, since the prevailing currents come south along the coast from Alaska. Still, relative to the North Sea, the winds are probably warmer.

    Still, the source of the wind should only come into play in determining the air temperature, since we're talking about a mass of moving air. Since bouncingczech stated that the air temperature in the Krkonose was higher, the source of the difference in apparent temperatures must come from elsewhere. Now, the speed of the wind can affect the apparent temperature through what we call in English "windchill." This effect occurs basically because in calm air, there is an insulating warm boundary layer of air surrounding your body (the surrounding air is heated through conduction with the molecules in your skin); when the wind kicks up, the thickness of this insulating layer decreases (the warm air is blown away) and cooler air is convected into its place. Hence one feels cooler, because more body heat is lost to the surrounding air.

    Anyway, if there was minimal wind in both places, it's a moot point.
     
  20. wer

    wer Well-Known Member

    Yes, that's why I have written "relatively" in my post. 8)

    With minimal winds the humidity is essential for the feelings. Colder winds tend to be of stable humidity, while the warmer winds tends to become dry with growing distance from the ocean. Therefore I think there is higher humidity on Sněžka because of the colder winds.

    We should also consider the specificity of Sněžka, it is the highest peak far and wide. There are no obstacles between Sněžka and the North Sea for that altitude. The area of Sněžka is of Tundra climate (ET) under Köppen climate classification. I think that's climate you can't find in California.

    [​IMG]

    I guess bouncingczech means the very peak of Sněžka, but just for sure - there is dramatically different climate on the northern mountainsides of the whole Sudeta.

    BTW, we could even compare the real numbers, at least for Sněžka we have quite precise data, since there are weather stations.
     

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