It's Still Hot

This photograph may look familiar from a couple weeks ago, but it was actually taken today with the intention of saying . . . it's still 102 degrees (39 degrees C) outside! It's been this hot for about two months now.

I'll grant you I live in Georgia where it's expected to be hot, but at least here in Atlanta, summer temperatures are usually only in the low to mid 90s. Unfortunately, the humidity is also usually in the high to mid 90s as well (percent), so it can feel plenty warm, but this year the temperatures have been hovering around or above the 100 mark, and that difference has been noticeable. I can't remember it being this hot for this long in the nearly 30 years since I first moved here.

But I really shouldn't complain. I understand that the heat wave in Moscow, combined with smog from forest fires, is causing nearly 700 deaths a day. Imagine a disaster equivalent to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Towers every four days. Not even in all of Russia, but just in Moscow alone. It's been called the hottest summer in Russia in not 100, not even 500, but 1,000 years. And the latest news suggests that now the country's wilted wheat crop may fail.

Meanwhile, heavier-than-average monsoons combined with melting glaciers have resulted in flooding in Pakistan that has killed over 1,500 people and displaced some 8 percent of the country's population. One third of the nation, an area the size of Great Britain, is currently underwater. Meanwhile, over in adjacent India, headlines are reading "Punjab Is Drowning."

In Greenland, an iceberg four times the size of Manhattan has broken away from the icefield, the largest iceberg to break off since 1962. 2010 is on track to be the hottest year ever. NOAA has already confirmed that March, April, May and June have each set records, making the first half of 2010 the warmest such period worldwide since record-keeping began in 1880.

But I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. If you live anywhere on this planet and have been outside since March, you've probably noticed by now that it's hot.