WEATHER II: Hell on Earth

[Thad]

Left the house for the first time in a few weeks yesterday (to get an allergy shot, pick up some prescriptions, and grab some Mexican takeout while I was in the neighborhood). I'd been looking forward to it, but wow Phoenix in July.

I'm clearly going to have to work out some kind of way to periodically take off my mask to drink water. I guess I'll need to take it off every time I get back in my car and then put it back on right before I get out to go in someplace. That's going to greatly increase the number of times I'm putting my mask on, taking it off, and putting things in my mouth over the course of a trip, which ain't great, but neither is heatstroke.

[Upthorn]

I'm clearly going to have to work out some kind of way to periodically take off my mask to drink water. I guess I'll need to take it off every time I get back in my car and then put it back on right before I get out to go in someplace. That's going to greatly increase the number of times I'm putting my mask on, taking it off, and putting things in my mouth over the course of a trip, which ain't great, but neither is heatstroke.

What I've been doing is putting exam gloves on right after I put on my mask, and taking them off right before I get back in my car, then taking my mask off right after I get back in.
(I toss the used gloves in the back, and have found that they generally survive one trip through the washing machine)

[Thad]

Not a bad idea.

I've got a box of vinyl exam gloves and I've found that they're not great; they're hard to put on and I usually end up with a glove that's either ripped or has the fingertips hanging loosely at the end. The powdered latex kind would probably be better.

[beatbandito]

Latex gloves are worthless for those very reasons. If you can't get your hands on good powdered gloves (xxl, you don't want them to grip at all for the removal) then I've used kitchen gloves to some effect, though they stand out more. Home Depot had a a similar thing in near the gardening gloves that was much slimmer and shorter cuffs, but the same kind of lining.

I've been reusing some powdered nitrile work gloves that ran really low and I haven't seen in stock again anywhere. I leave them out to sun on the dash and don't touch anything in the car, and of course tons of sanitizer all the time now that it's back.

[Thad]

I don't know how long they'd last in a car here; I expect I'd want to get a box and take a few at a time when I left the house. If boxes are possible to come by.

[Esperath]

Freak thunderstorm in the Bay Area, people here are so unaccustomed to this weather that people are posting shit like:

"It’s 3am. I live in Union City. What are these flashes that I’ve been seeing for the past 45 minutes? Big flashes are near the beginning and end of the video"
"Should I be ready to evacuate?"
"Bright blue-purplish flashing on the peninsula"
"Did anybody else see sparks of light coming from the coastal area?"

That said, it's mostly a dry thunderstorm and this is California, so yeah

[Thad]

Reminds me of a story from when my wife used to be a nanny. She was driving with the kids in the backseat and it started raining, and the younger one (maybe two years old?) started freaking out because he didn't know what rain was.

[Upthorn]

Today it also seems to be more humid in this area than Seattle.

[Thad]

Christ, how can it be 107 degrees and raining at 9 o'clock at night?

Seriously, this isn't just "lol phoenix" stuff. I've never seen anything like this. And neither has anyone else.

[Silversong]

Our temperatures have been normal, but I'm having my worst allergy symptoms ever. And this is after 3 years of allergy immunotherapy, I'm supposed to be almost cured by now.

At what point do we rename this to the The Climate Change Experience thread?

[Friday]

1997: Weather, a/s/l?

2003: WEATHER LOL ANIME TIDDIES

2007: The sun beats down as we struggle against the regime of Bush/Cheney

2014: Does the sun know racism is over?

2020: Weather II: Hell on Earth

2022: The Climate Change Experience thread

2028: Help, I am on fire what is the number for 911

2036: As fires destroy 38% of all life on earth, Republicans begrudgingly admit that "perhaps god has sent climate change to punish the gays"

[Thad]

At last we've got ourselves a real-ass monsoon tonight.

The temperature has dropped 45 degrees. No fooling. The forecast for 8 PM was 106; it's currently 72. I can feel the difference taking a few steps outside my house; it's a lot hotter next to the block wall than a few feet away.

Dog has not been outside but keeps shaking off as if she is wet, I assume because she has a Pavlovian reaction to the sound of rain.

[Friday]

Your dog is big on that kind of thing

[Thad]

I don't want to jinx it, but today may have been our last 110-degree day of 2020.

[Thad]

I don't want to jinx it, but today may have been our last 110-degree day of 2020.

Now the forecast is saying "haha nope" and that it'll be back up there by Friday, but we've also finally hit monsoon season so forecasts can really turn on a dime.

Had a beautiful, stormy-but-not-too-stormy night on Sunday. Just sat out on the porch. It was 72 degrees at about 9 PM, on a night where the forecast low was 82, and that's the thing about monsoon season; the weather gets a lot harder to reliably predict.

At any rate we've already set the record for the most days above 110 in a year; it currently stands at 50. I'd like it to stay there, but who fucking knows; we've got another month before we can really be sure there won't be any more.

[Mothra]

Pretty dire stuff fellas

[Brantly B.]

Just do a search for "private firefighters" if you really feel like sharpening your guillotine.

[Thad]

I suppose one advantage of living in the desert is we don't have to worry about wildfires. We still get the occasional housefire, factory fire, or train fire, but there's really not enough plant life for drought to lead to wildfires here. So all we have to worry about with climate change is running out of water, heatstroke, and skin cancer.

Northern Arizona's another story. On the whole it's a much more pleasant part of the state to live in, but parts of it keep burning down so I'm not sure how long that will continue to be the case.

[Grath]

Well, California's slave firefighters can't work because they all got exposed to Covid in prison, so they're dangerously low on firefighters.

[beatbandito]