As I write this the temperature at 11:31 PDT is 111 degrees going up to 120 today in Phoenix. I'm not sure if any of you have actually been in 120 degrees or not. I have without an air conditioner but luckily I was 25 between 1973 and 1975 and survived it for several days near Gila Bend Arizona while my father and I were doing mining assaying then in the summer. What was it like?
It was 100 degrees when I woke up sleeping then in the back of my father's pickup truck at 6 am when the sun's light first hit my like a torch, by 1 to 4 pm it was 120 degrees. Starting about noon I walked over to a windmill for birds and desert animals in the area, dipped my t-shirt in it, got on my dirt bike motorcycle and rode down the dry washes at 25 to 30 miles per hour so I wouldn't get heat prostration which I had a problem with in my 20s. I had heat prostration twice once at age 10 and once at around age 27 while planting trees near Mt. Shasta then. (in the 1970s you could make over 100 dollars a day planting trees which was very good money then.) (during late spring and summer only because where we were planting would be snow covered a lot of the year in the forests there at that time. Anyway in 120 degrees my white T-shirt and shorts that I wore I noticed salt incrustations forming under my arm pits from sweating so much to stay alive. So, I would take my t-shirt off and literally have to break the salt incrustations off my underarms of my t-shirt before I put it on the next morning so the salt wouldn't cut my underarms. Trying to stay conscious was hard too in that much heat for someone from Southern California then. I was used to up to about 110 degrees but anything above 115 to 120 degrees is often fatal if you don't know what you are doing out in it. You have to be very physically and psychologically prepared for pretty serious headaches for one thing in that much heat if you stay out in it and aren't inside with air conditioning. Pets and small children in this much heat often go into a coma like place and then if not treated properly die that day or within a few days.
More people die from the heat in the U.S. than from any other weather.
Another serious thing. You REALLY do not want to get sunburned in this much heat either because this also could lead to heat prostration. So, sunblock if you have to be out in it working or change your schedule so you work 4 am to noon or at night so you don't get heat stroke and die from it. But, even sun blocking you have to make sure your pores can sweat or that is a problem too. If you had this much heat with humidity I would just forget going outside completely unless you were in an air conditioned car or truck.
So, watch out for children, the elderly, pets, lifestock and everything else not inside with air conditioning on days like this week and beyond.
Here are the predictions for temperatures today Tuesday June20th 2017:
Phoenix Arizona 120 degrees
Las Vegas 115 degrees
Palm Springs 122 degrees
Death Valley 125 degrees
Anything above 115 degrees is sort of like being out in an oven if you are there.
A few years ago I got out to put gas in my car in Palm Springs in 117 degrees and it was exactly like stepping out into an oven while I filled my car with gasoline and jumped back into the air conditioning in my car as soon as possible.
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