Humidity and Bugs

Everyone seemed to have been complaining about the heat yesterday and television pseudo-weather forecasters clamoring about "record heat like we've never seen before".  Honestly, I'm very vulnerable to any heat above 80 degrees and I had few problems yesterday.  Actually, that record heat and relatively low humidity (in the 50s) was rather comfortable for the most part.  All the thunderstorms (some quite severe) bypassed Waterbury too.  

Yesterday, the temperature was at a high of around 97 degrees (which was only for an hour or two late in the afternoon) but the humidity was only in the 53-60% range which made the heat quite tolerable.  That may be a record for mid-June, I suppose, but we regularly get into the triple digits in July so being in the 90s in June doesn't really seem so far-fetched nor highly unlikely.   

In fact, my birthday barbeques which are always the last weekend in June or first weekend in July are often brutally and uncomfortably hot and humid.  If we aren't in triple digits, we are often near triple digit temperatures with very high humidity.  On those days, I'm trying to cool my body down every 15-20 minutes.  And that is a timeframe that is only two to three weeks away!  I really don't get what all the clamoring is about pertaining to yesterday's warmer weather.

Yesterday, I did some usual yardwork and some puttering around working on a model train (painting) out in the yard with no problems.  Even considering my poor health, I really didn't have any problems with the heat.  I always have problems but the heat didn't seem to make things worse yesterday.  The warmer weather and low humidity actually felt rather nice.  

In the evening, we headed to Lowes to pick up some building supplies.  I sweat all day and also while pushing around carts full of building supplies but, honestly, the heat wasn't worth mentioning.   It was simply a bit warmer than usual.  

This morning, on the other hand...  the temperature is near 80 degrees already (before 7am) and the humidity is at 93%.  Now that is oppressing heat!  The humidity is key in how oppressing hot climates can be on the body.  To make matters worse, the flying insects are swarming out there too.  This morning's weather reminds me of the times I lived on the Gulf Coast.  

So, this morning, when you step outside you are enveloped in oppressing humidity and, within a minute or two, you are then covered in little flying gnats and black flies.  And, I mean covered.  I couldn't see out of my eyeglasses after being out there for about 15 minutes because I had so many insects crawling all over them...  and my ears...  and my forehead...  etc.  

At 6:30am this morning, I moved bags of sand from the car to the deepest part of the backyard (using a wheelbarrow) so I could add sand to our new horseshoe pits.  I can honestly say that, today, the heat and humidity is brutal.  The humidity is in the 90s and that always affects my breathing. Combine high humidity with temperatures above 80 degrees and my health will crash within minutes.  Throw in an over-abundance of flying insects, and today is not a day to be outdoors.  

It seems to me that today is the day to be complaining about the heat...  not yesterday.

I should also note that, although I am downplaying the reports of "record heat", I have no doubts that we are also suffering from global warming.  I've been advising and warning about this approaching since the 1980s due to being closer to insider information in my Air Force career.  This advice for the past four decades has always been based on very clear-cut scientific data the Air Force collects every second of every day.  In the 1990s, things were becoming much more clear about this problem and I continued warning people.  This advice always fell on deaf ears and conspiratorial minds creating absurd nonsense but it has always been quite obvious to anyone who is logical.  

Since I've retired, I have become more active in scientific endeavors so I am closer to "seeing" and understanding our solar system than most people.  Our climate on Earth is definitely changing.  Through satellite imaging, I'm seeing weather patterns in recent years that would have been more normal to see on Jupiter than Earth.  Our weather fronts and patterns have become absolutely huge in recent years and the intensities have increased significantly too.  Honestly, I didn't think we would see what I'm seeing today until the 2050 timeframe but here it is in the early 2020s.  

I could get into more scientific data on why the next three years or so could be worse for our climate than we've ever seen and why my scientific opinion is very strong on this particular hypothesis but I long ago learned not to waste my time and energy.  

It is time to go sit at the piano for a while and then work on a model train...

EDIT:  It is bedtime now and I am noticing that I have a face and scalp full of bug bites from this morning.  The bites are itchy and a bit swollen.  This is a far worse case of bug bites than I have even ever gotten at the lake house while doing photography.  The best photography seems to be bug feeding times and I've been eaten alive many times trying to get good photos.  This morning, however, the bugs were brutal here at home and I was only outside for about 15 minutes!