We're dealing with 101-103 down here right now - that's about 39C. They're saying we'll "cool down" by the middle of the week to the mid-90's. Cool down? It's freaking June!! August is the worst here, but now I'm starting to get worried what that'll mean, shesh.

As if $4 gas wasn't bad enough, now the electric bill will be going up (despite keeping the thermostat relatively high), and the water bill will be going up (we haven't had a good rain in almost a month).

jojo wrote:

I guess air conditionng must be pretty standard in your homes and apartment eh Larry? Man I couldnt take that. I have 2 fans on me when its 21°c here, not sure what that is in Farenheit

In most middle-upper class homes, yes. Unfortunately, in many lower working class and economically challenged parts of the city, especially among elderly and minorities, they don't. They usually have fans at best. Under these conditions the city hands out free fans to the elderly. But many just run them with the windows closed and blow hot air around, and some open their windows and blow hot air in instead of out. Many elderly and sick people die in this heat even with fans running, let alone among those without them. A lot of the older homes in the city are made of brick and have tar roofs. It turns them into ovens.

In C, today's high will be 37.77....

Well you'all come on over, it only 11°c 52f perfect day, but can change in the blink of an eye.
We can get occasional days in the 30C in july or august, and many hit West Edmonton Mall to cool off.

It is 71 and raining here in Chicago right now, yesterday and the day before it was a lot hotter and humid.

It got pretty warm down here too,
Williamsburg got up to 105 one day

Shoot even yesterday when me and my mom rode down to NC for the day, it was a bit warm
and that fire thats in Hyde County has been sending some smoke our way too

IOWA CITY, Iowa (Reuters) - Officials moved paintings, books and documents out of harm's way on Sunday as record flooding in parts of the U.S. Midwest partly submerged the University of Iowa campus in Iowa City.

Fifteen campus buildings were flooded, including the Iowa Museum of Art, despite what university president Sally Mason termed "herculean efforts" to contain the rushing Iowa River.

"We did our best with the first 15, in many cases, but it wasn't quite enough," Mason said. "Mother Nature took over."

"The campus has been hit hard. The city has been hit hard," said Michael Sullivan of Johnson County Emergency Management.

Flood waters prompted the removal of valuable items from the university's Arts Campus, and nearly 1,000 homes were inundated in Iowa City and neighboring Coralville, Sullivan said.

Summer school classes were suspended and many roads were impassable, though the university's hospital was operating.

Across Iowa, 36,000 people were displaced by the flooding and "millions of acres" were submerged, officials said.

Reuters Slideshow Pics

Natal is a summer rainfall area and it's mid winter there now

===

Search team rescues 20 off rooftops in KZN downpour

June 18, 2008

At least 20 people had to be rescued from rooftops on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast today, after heavy overnight downpours, the SAPS Search and Rescue Team reported.

Spokesperson Jack Haskins said most of the incidents occurred between Umkomaas and Port Edward.

"Our rescue team had to go out on foot to Club Marina at Ifafa beach to rescue people from their rooftops.

"It could not be done by helicopter, because the pilot could not get there in the bad weather," he said.

Haskins said they had also received reports of cars being washed away with the occupants inside, but this could not be confirmed.

At this stage, it was also unknown if anyone was missing.

"Last night rivers burst their banks, bridges were washed away and a lot of structural damage was done along the south coast," he said.

"Right now water-levels in all the rivers are extremely high.


Source: The Star

There is no way to describe how bad it is in the American heartland. This is worse then the previous record "100-year floods" of 1993. They are calling this one a 500-year flood in many areas. Most people did not even have flood insurance because the government agency set up to sell it doesn't even offer it unless it's an area prone to flooding, and once every 500 years doesn't qualify. Homeowners insurance does not cover flooding (because the new agency eliminated the need for it). So many people who have lost homes have no insurance to cover it and will have to rely on whatever government assistance is made available.

This will affect everyone because much of this year's corn and soybean crop has been lost, and they are ingredients in much of our food. Not just things like cereals and salad dressings -- about half the corn grown in America goes to feed livestock, so meat prices will go up. Not to mention ethanol derived from corn, which will drive gas prices even higher, etc. etc.

This will affect the whole world, since a good portion of America's harvest helps feed starving people all over.

It will take weeks for the water to make its way down to New Orleans, and weeks for the flooded areas to become dry enough to re-enter.

Things just don't get better for this country...

Gas prices are at record highs
The housing market sucks
The dollar is weak
Food costs are going to skyrocket (the flooding only makes it worse)
Health care costs are increasing

And what's scary is that if even one major hurricane hit the gulf... $10 a gallon oil isn't out of the question. I don't even want to think about it.

Excellent comments there Larry and John. Here's another I found to be relevant by Tom Engelhardt at TomDispatch:


"But here's the special strangeness of this TV moment: Network news loves weather disasters, and yet, as with historic droughts in the Southeast or Southwest, as with the hordes of tornadoes coursing through the center of the country, as with so many other extreme weather phenomena of recent times, including flooding in Southern China and the Burmese cyclone, when it comes to the Midwestern floods, night after night no TV talking head seems ever to mention the possibility that climate change/global warming might somehow be involved. (Nor, by the way, are our major newspapers any better on the subject.) As an omission, it's kinda staggering, really, for an event already being labeled "a Midwestern Katrina."

All that soggy Iowa acreage and an estimated 20% of the corn and soya crops in the region already lost -- forget ethanol, but think soaring food prices -- and yet not a word. Of course, it's true that no single weather catastrophe like this one can be simply and definitively linked to climate change -- and undoubtedly some may have nothing to do with it. But when the weather is this extreme, wouldn't you want, as a reporter or news editor, to make sure the subject was at least raised and considered? Or is it simply: been there, done that?

My theory of life is that, when you see a four-legged, black-and-white striped horse-like animal on a savannah, you should call it a zebra until evidence proves otherwise. You would certainly think that, this late in the game, this post-Al Gore, this post-all those melting icebergs, icecaps, iced-over seas, and glaciers, such levels of denial might have abated a bit, but no such luck, it seems. "