Oregon's Killer July: 12 Days Over 90° & 4-5 Days Over 100°!

[Ivan Seeking]

This is a killer July for us here in Oregon. Normally we only have 5 days in July over 90 degrees [Portland]. This month it will be more like 12, with 4 or 5 days over 100.

I left California to get away from this nonsense! There ought to be a law!

Seriously though, while we Oregonians are wearing t-shirts when people in L.A. have on heavy coats, many of us are heat wimps.

 

[Pengwuino]

Yah... I live in Fresno.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Yah... I live in Fresno.

I know. I'm sorry.

Fresno is great if you love the heat.

 

[Pengwuino]

Reminds me when I was complaining to my friend about the tuition increases. We're up to $3000/semester and i was complaining to her at lunch about it and then I remembered and brought up how she was paying $40k/year at her old university .

 

[Huckleberry]

Can't take the heat, Ivan?

It has been a bit uncomfortable trying to sleep the last few days, but not too bad for me. I was told when I moved to Arizona that the heat would thin out my blood. I doubt that's true, but I have developed a tolerance for the heat. Now that I live in Oregon I can deal with this weather well. It's just 6 months of the year that are chilly for me. It's even worse when I visit my parents at Christmas and it's below freezing all day and night. I'm a cold wimp.

 

[Evo]

Ack, that's horrible Ivan. You can come down here, we've been dealing with record cold. They're predicting that 2009 may the second coldest year since 1856.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I'm a heat wimp too. I always wanted to move to Oregon. At least it still rains a lot right?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I'm a heat wimp too. I always wanted to move to Oregon. At least it still rains a lot right?

We gets lots of rain, and in the winter I've seen the temperature hover around 40 degrees F [the ideal temperature], 24 hours a day, for weeks.

People from the sunbelt often have difficulty adjusting to all of the rainy weather. People who live in areas like Eugene, including those born here, have high rates of depression; presumably [allegedly] due to light deprivation.

 

[Math Is Hard]

It's hot here, too :(
Had to run the contraband air conditioner tonight.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

We gets lots of rain, and in the winter I've seen the temperature hover around 40 degrees F [the ideal temperature], 24 hours a day, for weeks.

People from the sunbelt often have difficulty adjusting to all of the rainy weather. People who live in areas like Eugene, including those born here, have high rates of depression; presumably [allegedly] due to light deprivation.

Yeah, I've heard that Oregon supposedly has, or at least at one time had, the highest suicide rate in the country. When I stayed in Coos Bay my host kept pointing out homes and businesses and telling me that the owners had commited suicide. It was a bit creepy.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

It's hot here, too :(
Had to run the contraband air conditioner tonight.

I stayed in a hotel room this weekend and kept the AC on the whole two days straight. It was wonderful.

 

[Math Is Hard]

I stayed in a hotel room this weekend and kept the AC on the whole two days straight. It was wonderful.

Oh my God, I'm jealous! Was there a pool, too?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Yeah, I've heard that Oregon supposedly has, or at least at one time had, the highest suicide rate in the country. When I stayed in Coos Bay my host kept pointing out homes and businesses and telling me that the owners had commited suicide. It was a bit creepy.

Between the economy and the weather, the coastal areas are known for being tough places to live. In addition to the rain, they get lots of fog. Economically, it may be okay for retirement, but I would never want to try to make a living there.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It's hot here, too :(
Had to run the contraband air conditioner tonight.

How hot was it today?

 

[Argentum Vulpes]

It has been nice up here on the high plains. Daytime temps around 85 if it is not raining and the night time temps have been in the mid to upper 50s. This has definitely been an off summer up here where in July we enter a drought and blistering heat till the nasty thunder storms of September and snow of November.

Now this weather really sucks for growing peppers, tomatoes, and melons but my cabbage, lettuce, cucumbers, and garlic are doing great.

 

[Office_Shredder]

I don't think we've had more than one day over 90 degrees around me. Some sort of record for sure

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Oh my God, I'm jealous! Was there a pool, too?

Yep. No one was even using it. You are always welcome to any pools I can provide.

 

[Astronuc]

This is a killer July for us here in Oregon. Normally we only have 5 days in July over 90 degrees [Portland].

I think we have your weather.

I don't think we've had one day in the 90's all of July. It's been mostly in the mid to upper 80s, and down in the 60's at night. We've had a lot of rain too, and unfortunately high humidity. The air smells a bit musty.

We've had thunderstorms the last two days, and we're supposed to get more today.

The excessive rain has waterlogged some fields and some local farmers have lost crops. Some farmers have planted three times and lost all.

 

[Math Is Hard]

How hot was it today?

It has been coming down out of the 90s into the 80s. It wasn't that bad outside yesterday, but in my bedroom it was 85 degrees of course. My place is the worst heat trap on the planet.

 

[Math Is Hard]

Yep. No one was even using it. You are always welcome to any pools I can provide.

Woohoo! Thanks!

You are so fortunate to get the pool all to yourself. I was hoping to get some good pool time when I went up to Sacramento a couple of months ago. I got down to the hotel pool and there was this guy with the smelliest cigar on the planet sitting by the pool stinking the whole place up. I gave up after about 5 minutes.

 

[B. Elliott]

90 is about the highest it gets around here in Connecticut. Right now it's only 80, but with 96% humidity.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

This has been a very nice summer so far with temperatures in the mid 80s. I planted some ornamental boxwood bushes that need daily watering so I have taken up the habit of sitting in a director's chair, Zwiebach's First Course in one hand, water hose in the other, the kind with the spray gun nozzle. If I get lost in thought over some passage, then one of the bushes gets an extra treat. But these last couple of days the heat has gone up to near 90 in the afternoon and still hot and muggy in the evening. When it's like that I feel like turning the hose on myself and ending it all. Think positive, soon you'll be complaining about the cold. The nice thing about the cold is that you can always add another layer. But with the heat, once you've stripped down to your bare skin what else do you take off?

 

[B. Elliott]

But with the heat, once you've stripped down to your bare skin what else do you take off?

That's why I've always preferred colder weather than hotter. You can always put on more clothes than you can take off.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The nice thing about the cold is that you can always add another layer. But with the heat, once you've stripped down to your bare skin what else do you take off?

I have a number of sets of military issue arctic thermal wear that keep me warm well into the teens [with nothing else on]. But as you say, one can only strip down so far in the heat.

10 AM and 90 degrees; heading to 105 [at our house] today. Portland is calling for 103.

My parents live in the Sacramento area where it hit about 115 a few weeks ago! That is almost hot enough to make someone from Fresno sweat. An interesting note: On that day, my uncle was in the area and had a tire blow out while driving on the freeway. He ended up needing a tow [long story]. The tow truck driver said they had been responding to blowouts all afternoon. It seems that when the temp gets that high, car tires are vulnerable at high speeds.

 

[mbisCool]

Seattle managed 100 degrees yesterday afternoon and it looks like today will be the same. I never thought I would experience this heat in Washington.

The northwest rains often, however, this summer there has been little rainfall. It's nice though, instead of rain all year we got a cold and snowy first six months and now its extremely warm and sunny. The seasons are nice :)

 

[waht]

This is bad for all the beautiful trees.

 

[Pengwuino]

My parents live in the Sacramento area where it hit about 115 a few weeks ago! That is almost hot enough to make someone from Fresno sweat.

Yah the further north you seem to go in the central valley, the more god aweful it can get it seems. I remember one year we were traveling up to Portland and we went past Redding or something and it was along the lines of 115 and I thought the car was set to undergo spontaneous thermonuclear reaction.

 

[turbo]

I could take a spell of dry heat. We've gotten into the 80's the last couple of days, but with the relative humidity in the high 70s and above, that gets old really fast. I walked down to the garden and picked about 1/2 pint of green beans to steam with our supper, (just a few minutes tending that short row) and was overheated and sticky when I got back inside. Any exertion and I would have been soaked in sweat.

We are forecast for more thunderstorms for tonight, thursday and friday, and have already had some pretty impressive ones several times in the past week. We're getting humid southerly flows that bring up lots of moisture and dump it on us when they hit the cooler Canadian air dammed up by the western mountains and foothills. My garden is horrible, with stunted tomato and pepper plants, cukes and squash. Only the garlic and a few water-tolerant crops are doing well.I crab about the condition of my garden, but between the downpours, heavy winds, and damaging hails, farmers are suffering. Most dairy farmers should have gotten in their second crop of hay by now, but instead they're just now getting a really poor first crop and the silage corn that should be at least eye-level or taller doesn't reach my knees. Some farmers may have to cull their herds and try to ride out the winter - that's tough because their income is derived from milk production, and if they have to cull producing milkers, that cuts their income, and there won't be decent feed to be had for love or money through the winter unless they supplement heavily with out-of-state corn and grain ($$$$$). Either way, they're screwed, especially because milk is price-controlled and there is no way that they can exploit a shortage of that product to get a better price.

Also, because of all the rain and humidity, farmers raising potatoes (huge cash crop in the north) or tomatoes are getting hit with late blight, and many of them have had to burn crops in the field to save adjacent fields. Now, we find that low-bush blueberries are being hit by a blight that is specific to them, and that is the biggest agricultural crop in coastal regions, employing thousands.

 

[binzing]

The heat's disgusting in the Valley, isn't it Ivan?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The heat's disgusting in the Valley, isn't it Ivan?

It got so hot yesterday that Dick Cheney waterboarded himself.

 

[Janus]

It got so hot yesterday that Dick Cheney waterboarded himself.

It hit 92° in Astoria yesterday, a town where they complain about the heat when the thermometer tops 70!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It hit 92° in Astoria yesterday, a town where they complain about the heat when the thermometer tops 70!

I'm not sure of the name, but some small town around here lost power yesterday afternoon.

 

[hypatia]

I don't think we have had a day that has hit 90 yet. Evo and I must have almost the same weather system, some of our nights have dropped into the 40's.

 

[Evo]

I don't think we have had a day that has hit 90 yet. Evo and I must have almost the same weather system, some of our nights have dropped into the 40's.

Yes, isn't it wonderful? Well, it's not good for the farmers, but I even went several days without a/c AND I had to wear a sweater. That has never happened this time of year in my entire lifetime, and I am older than dirt. I get up in the morning and I would normally open the door to a wall of oppresive heat and humidty, now it's chilly. I've read that this may be the coldest summer in over 150 years.

 

[dlgoff]

Yes Hy. It's hard to think of global warming around here. I'm hearing talk of a mini ice age now.