The newspaper reported a new RECORD high temperature of 100 degrees F for England.
Welcome to the triple digit club!
Phoenix AZ and it's neighboring cities have been sweltering.
I don't walk my dog at night anymore. We walk at first light, and I drag him through the lawn sprinklers first.
BTW, Oven Mits may sound like a great idea for handling a hot steering wheel, but they are a bit clumsy. Try the cotton gardening gloves with the pLastic dimples.
Now on to the news from USA Today....
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PHOENIX (AP) � (Update) It's so hot windshields are shattering or falling out, dogs are burning their paws on the pavement, and candles are melting indoors.
The hottest day in Phoenix so far this month is 117 degrees, reached July 16.
By Matt York, AP
People who live in the Valley of the Sun don't usually sweat the summer heat. But this July is off the charts.
With an average temperature of nearly 98 degrees, July 2003 brands the record books as the hottest month in Phoenix since the National Weather Service started keeping track in 1896.
Forget that the average July temperature is 93. July 2003 is now THE hottest month in Phoenix in 108 years.
It took a lot of hot days to get there.
The average high for the first three weeks of the month was 110 degrees when it should have been 104. The high on July 16 was 117, making it the hottest day so far this year.
Equally scorching was the low temperature on July 15. It only made it to 96 degrees, a record for the date.
"Being in this heat is like walking through the hot lamps they use to bake on a car's paint," said Roger Janusz, who was walking laps inside a mall instead of outdoors Thursday morning.
It's so hot that heat waves are creating turbulence for airplanes overhead, said Sky Harbor International Airport spokeswoman Deborah Ostreicher.
The searing pavement is burning the pads on dogs' feet and causing the animals to suffer heat stroke. Susan Prosse, hospital manager at University Animal Hospital, said when the pavement burns dogs' pads, they start dancing around. Some pet owners put booties on their dogs for their protection....
...About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed-wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts.
(note: the white boxers were being stolen by inmates on daytime job passes.)
On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 degrees inside the week before. Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels as sweat collected on their chests and dripped down to their pink socks.
"It feels like you are in a furnace," said James Zanzo't, an inmate who has lived in the tents for 1.5 years. "It's inhumane."
Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear pink, is not sympathetic. He said Wednesday that he told the inmates: "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents and they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths."
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[ August 11, 2003, 22:40: Message edited by: Wardad ]