Triple-Digit Heat Stalks Western U.S.

[video] Triple-Digit Heat Stalks Western U.S.

California, Nevada and Arizona are among the states bracing for triple-digit heat this weekend. WeatherBell Analytics chief forecaster Joe Bastardi joins Lunch Break.

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If you want to see the video click the "video" button above. The western states are going to break records for this time of year various places including Death Valley which is supposed to hit 129 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday. And I believe Phoenix might hit 120 degrees the same day.

I have personally been in 120 degrees without air conditioning while doing assaying in Arizona in the 1970s. My experience was that I had a headache most of the day, couldn't think straight most of the time, kept in shorts and a t-shirt and rode my motorcycle down a dry wash after putting my t-shirt in the water catch basin of a Windmill there in the desert for wild animals so they wouldn't die from thirst during summers there. So, I could cool down quickly through the water evaporating out of my t-shirt. We were in the Gila Bend area where my father had helped his Aunt and an old miner operate her Gold Mine during the 1930s when he was 18 one summer. The coldest it got was 100 degrees about 6 am and a person's body sweats out salts which encrusts one's underarms of one's shirts when out in it without air conditioning. I was very glad to get back to California that June likely in 1975 after 4 or 5 days of this while working there.

I can also remember traveling across Arizona and New Mexico and parts of the deserts of southern California in the 1950s before 90% of cars had air conditioners. My father would give me  a spray bottle of water and sometimes a wash cloth to wet and put on my face so I wouldn't pass out in the heat. The problem with this is my face would often get chapped from extreme evaporation so after a day or two of driving across Arizona and New Mexico I would have to put some kind of ointment on my face and stay out of the sun for several days until my face healed up. But, you didn't pass out so much from the heat or get a headache if you used a spray bottle and a wash rag and stuck your head out the open window periodically by doing this. Also, this was before anti-freeze was invented for cars so they just had water in the radiator. So, a canvas bag full of potable water was hung by ropes over the front grill in case the car boiled over so you didn't die if this happened. So, you always had cool water from the evaporation through the porous canvas water bag hung on the front grill of the car or truck. So, you could either fill your radiator or drink some so you didn't die out there on the open road at 110 degrees Fahrenheit or above. Also, there were no cell phones then so you really were on your own back then. So, unless you prepared for things properly often you didn't survive.