Longer & Hotter

One more from Jon Talton at Rogue Columnist ... he pulls from a recent article in the Arizona Republic:

The Republic has a page one brief on the weather. Headline: 7 straight days of 110+ and now, summer starts. Reporter John Faherty writes, "Last year set a record when the high temperature hit or exceeded 110 on 32 days...On average, that happens 10 times per year." Oh, and there's an unhealthy air alert. Sadly, this is the new normal. The summers have been getting hotter and lasting longer for years now. This is a man-made phenomenon: replacing agriculture with subdivisions, sprawling the urban island across 1,500 square miles or more, and throwing down asphalt, concrete and rocks with no thought to their consequences.

I grew up in Tempe and I tell people all the time that summers are getting hotter. And while the daytime heat is brutal I think the bigger problem is that the temperatures at night do not drop as fast or as low as they used to. This massive heat island around Phoenix is also changing the patterns of our annual monsoon rains. For me it has reached a tipping point. I don't think I like it here anymore. If I can't stand the heat, maybe I should get out and stop bitchin'.