It hit 103 in Seattle today.

(No, this isn’t going to be a global warming or climate change post… although I would like everyone to remember today when it’s winter and someone somewhere has a monster cold spell and maybe sets a record low and people say “gosh, that global warming stuff is a load of bullshit!”

The point is that you can’t look at the occasional extremes; today’s 103, a new record in Seattle, isn’t any more “proof” that global warming is real- but those super-duper cold days aren’t proof that it ISN’T real, either. You can’t take either one; they’re both outliers, extremes, and instead you have to take the overall trends and averages… which are all trending up, up, up.)

103 is hot. I don’t care who you are, where you are- that’s hot. It’s not Phoenix-hot; when I was down there for college at Arizona State University, I arrived at around midnight and had to walk from one end of campus to the other (Manzanita Hall to Saguaro Hall, which was south of Apache Blvd). It was about 95. In the daytime, it was routinely in the 110-120 range.

But 103 is hot. Yeah, humans can take it; we sweat more, but we can take it… but it helps a lot to be acclimated to it.

And let me tell you- no acclimation to that in Seattle! The humidity isn’t as bad as some places, like the Midwest or sweltering South, but again, same deal- acclimation.

Many people here in the Pacific NW have been bitching about the heat, and our friends and family around the nation in places where it gets hot regularly are mocking us… but they forget that we’re not acclimated. It does make a big difference, as this Seattle Times article points out:

“When you haven’t acclimated, you get this general discomfort,” Sawka said. “Your skin is wet and hot, your cardiovascular system is strained and maybe you didn’t drink as much water as you should, so you’re dehydrated, too.”

Folks who are acclimated to heat start sweating sooner and perspire more. The sweat is more diluted, so the body doesn’t lose precious salt. The process is better paced, so the sweat evaporates quickly. “People in places like Phoenix will say: ‘I hardly sweat at all,’ ” Sawka said. “They’re actually sweating a lot, but they don’t notice because their skin stays dry.”

Compared with a Seattleite, an acclimatized person in Houston and other steamy climes also has a heart that pumps more effectively and doesn’t beat as fast when the mercury soars.

…

Almost everyone — including the most shade-loving Northwesterner — has some ability to acclimate to heat. But a few people claim they never get used to it, and they could have a point.

It’s likely that folks who spend their early years in a warm climate are somehow primed to better shrug off the heat, Sawka said. One Army analysis found that recruits from northern states are more likely to get sick from the heat than those from the South. Another study found that people born in hot places had more sweat glands than people born in cool places.

Some people, especially the elderly, find it harder to shed heat because of heart problems, sickness, or the side effects of medication. Recent research suggests people suffering from infections might be more susceptible to heat. Others are handicapped by girth. “Those of us who are pleasantly plump have a layer of insulation that interferes with eliminating heat,” Sonna said.

Although people adapt to heat better than to cold, high temperatures can kill. A 2008 study found heat waves are the leading cause of death from natural disasters in the United States.

It’s only been 100 a few other times in Seattle. I remember one time, 15 years ago; July 20, 1994. I remember it very distinctly because on that day, when it finally broke into triple digits in Seattle, I was… skiing. Snowskiing.

Seriously. My girlfriend Paula and I had only been living together for a few months at this point, and we made a summertime run up to Whistler to ski on the Blackcomb Glacier. The day it hit 100 in Seattle, I was sharing a t-bar with Donna Weinbrecht, who was a super-duper-stud mogul skier (she had just come off winning gold medals in the Albertville, France 1992 Winter Olympics).

We came back to our place in Auburn to find all my fish dead or dying. They were tropical fish but weren’t acclimated, and their water got just too darned hot.

It’s been quite a day with that heat. Airplanes don’t climb as fast, although the performance differences aren’t as distinct with modern jets (think 737-800s versus old 727s). Animals overheat- acclimation again, though, because I saw golden retrievers walking around Victoria Peak in Hong Kong in sweltering weather that would put Indiana the Wonder Dog into heatstroke. People are even at risk for dying- heat waves kill more people than any other natural disaster in the United States according to some studies.

So folks, take heed- get inside an air conditioned place, stay cool, drink MORE water, and try to beat the heat. I know it’s tough to find AC sometimes- I read that less than 15% of the homes in this area are air conditioned. Go to a restaurant or bar or go see a movie- that’s good for a couple hours out of the heat!

Good news is that our normal, much more pleasant Seattle weather should be back within a few days.

For a while lately, G and I have been discussing whether or not to stick with our condo. We live in The Florentine, which is right next to Qwest Field between 1st Avenue and Occidental Avenue, in Pioneer Square.

One block further west, towards Elliott Bay, is Alaskan Way. It has two portions- the street-level, two-lanes-in-each-direction part, and the raised viaduct. The viaduct is ready to collapse at any moment- one decent earthquake and it’s done for.

The viaduct is State Route 99 and a main route through Seattle. 110,000 cars each day use it… and they’ve been trying to decide how to deal with the fact that it’s ready to fall for a while.

The good news from our point of view is that they’ve finally decided to do the logical thing… and replace it with a tunnel! Yay!

This is great for us if we can hang on for several years; our value will zip upwards, because the entire area will be a lot more attractive to live in.

Yay, tunnel! It’s also a good choice from the point of view of the city and businesses, because it means they don’t have to close as long; the tunneling will go on well under the surface and the present viaduct will remain open until the tunnel is ready.

Man, it’s snowing again here in Pioneer Square in Seattle. We just got all the last snowstorm pretty much cleared up- there’s still big piles of plowed snow in the parking lot next door melting, but the streets are all clear- and then tonight we’ve picked up another three inches, and as I write this at midnight it’s still snowing pretty hard.

This has already been a heck of a winter, weather-wise, and apparently it’s not going to let up.

Lucky for me I’m heading to Thailand at the end of February, where the average daily high is 91 and the low is 75, and they get about 1.1 inches of rain in the month.

Seattle has been under a heck of a cold spell in the past several days. Check out this chart:

You can see that the highs (the red zig-zaggy line is the actual temp) for the past several days are actually lower than our average lows (the blue line) for this time of year.

Along with that, we got a major amount of snow over a few days. It was over a foot in much of the Puget Sound area, and I’d say that we had a total snowfall of about a foot in my neighborhood (Pioneer Square) which is quite unusual.

Seattle basically shuts down when we get any decent (more than, say, 2 or 3 inches) of snow. The schools are closed, the roads don’t get plowed nearly as quickly as other major cities, and it’s actually quite socially acceptable to simply not go to work for many (if not most) jobs in Seattle.

This is for a number of reasons. The city only has something like 20 or 30 snowplows. Seriously. Half a million people, but 27 plows. We’ve also got a ton of hills.

For example, G and I walked up to the county buildings last month to get our marriage license. We live on 1st Ave; the county courthouse sits between 3rd and 4th Avenues and across the street, between 4th and 5th, is the county admin building.

When you enter the King County Courthouse from 3rd Ave, you’re actually in a sub-basement. You walk in, there’s security, and then a bank of elevators. Walk past the elevators through the building, and you come to a tunnel that takes you underneath 4th Ave to the County Admin building.

You go up to the 4th floor to the licensing department (cars, marriage, pets, you name it). If you want to exit the building onto 5th Avenue… you don’t have to go down at all. The 4th floor is about a half-story above 5th; you just walk out of the little lobby area, go down seven or eight steps, and you exit onto 5th.

So basically, between 3rd and 5th Avenue, there’s 5 stories worth of hill.

And that’s not even the steepest street in downtown Seattle!

Here’s another example. The lowest elevation in Seattle is basically sea level- Puget Sound. The highest elevation in the city is over 500 feet, and that’s only a little over a mile away.

There are many streets that are around a 20% grade, and heaven only knows how many are over a 10% grade.

The point of all this is that in Seattle, we just don’t do snow well at all. Even the main arterials aren’t cleared of snow and ice for several days after a storm, unless the temperature rises significantly. So let that be a warning to you if you’re coming here to live or visit- if it snows, be ready for things to be veeerrrrryyy slow in Seattle for at least a couple, if not several, days afterwards.

Oh, from a Seattle Times story, something that makes it worse:

To hear the city’s spin, Seattle’s road crews are making “great progress” in clearing the ice-caked streets.

But it turns out “plowed streets” in Seattle actually means “snow-packed,” as in there’s snow and ice left on major arterials by design.

“We’re trying to create a hard-packed surface,” said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. “It doesn’t look like anything you’d find in Chicago or New York.”

The city’s approach means crews clear the roads enough for all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, or those with front-wheel drive cars as long as they are using chains, Wiggins said.

The icy streets are the result of Seattle’s refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows.

“If we were using salt, you’d see patches of bare road because salt is very effective,” Wiggins said. “We decided not to utilize salt because it’s not a healthy addition to Puget Sound.”

When I said we don’t do snow… I wasn’t kidding. We really truly don’t do snow well here at ALL.

Now, I don’t know if this is good or bad. On the one hand, it costs millions of dollars in losses to businesses, but on the other hand there’s something a little bit charming about a city that seems to have collectively decided “when it snows, we’re all little kids again- snow day for everyone!”

I guess in the end, if we’re going to move on and become a real “big city”, we are going to have to change how we think and how we act in terms of the snow days.

But we’re having a good time with snowball fights and lots of sledding (remember all those hills!) in the meantime!