Houston, we have summer!
 

Yep, it's official, summer has arrived in Houston. We had a REALLY cold winter (for Houston) and a beautiful Spring. The weather since the middle of May has been darn hot, but surprisingly arrid so not really that bad.

Well, today sucked butt. It is now the normal Houston heat and humidity. It was miserable all day, even in the shade. At 8:30 we took the dogs for a walk. It was 90° and the heat index was 99°. It's now 10:20, and it's still well over 80°, 80% humidity and a heat index of over 90°.

yea. it sucks here too, not quite as much humidity but HOT, its when it gets over a 100 for 35 days straight that gets to me, I'm on my 3rd air conditioner in 12 years( compressors), my HVAC said I needed to bump up the size and buy a Rheem, I just did it, its badazzz!!!

Our real feel was 105 today, but it was only bad in the car. My windshied visor fell down while I was in the range for a while. Man, was it hot when I got into my 993 oven.

It's still raining in PDX. But I'll take rain over a Houston summer.

Actually today's rain was sort of nice. It was a warm rain, reminded me of a summer's rain on the East Coast, the kind that is followed by fireflies and the smell of sweet damp grass. Though our rain lasted near all damn day and no fireflies.

Beats the alternative.

I'll take 100+ with high humidity any day over winter, snow, ice, etc...

Spring/summer/fall is great. Winter is an excuse to spend (literally) 100% of one's time indoors and get caught up on work-related stuff. It blows.

Houston's summer weather is the worst I've ever seen. I was there once when the temperature was 99F and the dew point was 75F. I don't know what that works out to from a heat index standpoint, but it was awful (and I was used to Alabama summers at the time, so that is saying a lot).

Our dewpoint was 72F here in Knoxville yesterday. Miserable weather.

That would be a heat index of 112 F and 46% RH. In the summer, we regularly get over 80F dew point and 99 degree F which is 120 F heat index.

My local spot here yesterday, the high was 97.3, 78.8 dew point, which was a heat index of 115. And it is still early June. July and August are the hot months...We're also getting the what I remember as normal as a kid daily pop-up thunderstorms in the afternon. Yep, this is what happens when you have warm water in the Gulf, wind from the south and good heating during the day.

It keeps the riff-raff away...

Time for a cool one...
 

Help yourself;
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1275914351.jpg

I was outside all day yesterday framing up some walls. I took THREE showers. I can't stand this heat.

not too bad down here today. noon today should be a cool 102 heat index, 83% humidity and only 40% chance of rain. Looks like it might not rain (only20%) this coming wed. for the first day since I dug the hole for a new job 12 days ago. I might actually make it thru the day without working in 3 inches of mud and puddles of water for a few hours before the rain hits. got to love louisiana weather..

Heat indexes can be very misleading. Example Saturday afternoon heat indexes.
( these figures may not be exact but are close)

Lubbock, TX: 104 with 16% RH = 101 heat index = blast furnace heat

Corpus Christi: 89 with 87 RH = 101 heat index = runaway sauna

same heat index but very different heat.

Yesterday afternoon the heat index was 110 here and will get worse during the summer. As Masruam stated, we had a much colder than usual winter (we actually had a couple of mild freezes) and spring was great but it's going to be a long hot summer.

Last year at this time, it was hot, but dry. Almost no rain for 2 months. We have our humidity back, with a vengence.

Well, I only had 2, once after "Tour de Taco", our 30 mile bike ride we do on Sunday monrning. I was then installing kitchen cabinet hardware in the garage and cutting, cleaning, etc. I was a sweaty mess.

The funny thing, for the first 3 years I was back living here, I almost couldn't go outside in the summer. Now, with the year-round biking, I guess I don't care if I sweat.

I saw heat indexes north of 113° yesterday until 1pm. As the sun got hot, the humidity went down and the heat index fell a bit.

I've found that a dew point of 62° or less is pretty comfy, but anything over 65° is pretty miserable. Our dew point yesterday ranged anywhere from 75°-85°.

Right now at my house, 87°, heat index 106° and dew point 81°.

Don't fergit der skeeetrs!!!!!

Grew up in Houston. Only place where I could take a COLD shower, dry off, and STILL be wet!!! Yep, we had daily showers in the 60/70's in the summer and fall, as I remember it. Constant breeze off The Gulf. If you look at the really old trees you can see more branches grew on the northerly side than any other. But the weather patterns changed some in the 80's. Used to go back to visit up until about 2007. Hot, muggy, and worse than I remembered growing up! Or was I no longer used to it ;-)

Still cannot stand that the North Freeway up through The Woodlands and beyond is deforested. I remember going out on the East Loop, EastTex, and Gulf Freeways and seeing tonnes of cattle ranches and horses. Seems like Houston made that illegal now. We used to hunt and fish on Lake Houston. Doubt you can hunt that much anymore. My cousin's ranch northwest of town was divided up years ago and is now nothing more than mcmansions, and some of the uglier us home type versions at that. It was a very beautiful little ranch decades ago. Yep, can't go back...

Of course, outside of Waco we would get beyond 115 degrees in the summer as registered on the thermometer. All the time!!! Never paid attention to the heat index.

Now I'm wimpy, found myself complaining about 85 degrees this weekend. And it is too wet to even cut and bale the hay. Losing 17 acres of hay this summer because we just can't cut it! At least the trees have come out very well, including the `1,600 we planted before spring!

113 yesterday in Las Vegas ... heat advisory still in effect ...

... but is dry heat!!!

I spent a couple of days in Tempe, AZ once. Dry heat is no joke when it's that hot. It feels like standing in the mouth of a huge hair dryer.

I spent a couple of summers in Rota, Spain. It was perfect. It was hot like Texas or FL, but it had a great cool breeze off of the water and was dry. It had the best of all the warm climates.

Summer? What is that?

Thats what we have 9 months of the year! While you guys are freezing your rears off, we are enjoying 75-80 degree days! :)

You know, It's that one week in August, wait for it.

Around here it is still mid to low 60s, our transition from Gray May to June Gloom was seamless.

I remember those days, from living in Pacific Beach...

Drive to work, 5-6 miles inland, and all of a sudden, blinding sunshine. Driving home, all of a sudden, clouds and shadow...It usually occured right about I-5