I mean I watched people in Canada in the news this morning and thought, why are they still outside in the sun even?
"Mad Dogs And Englishmen" by Noël Coward (1932)
In tropical climes there are certain times of day
When all the citizens retire
To take their clothes off and perspire
It's one of those rules the greatest fools obey
Because the sun is far too sultry
And one must avoid its ultry-violet ray
The natives grieve when the white men leave their huts
Because they're obviously, definitely nuts!
Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun
https://genius.com/Noel-coward-mad-dogs-and-englishmen-lyric...
If you have water at the wet bulb temperature exposed to ambient air, then evaporation and condensation are in equilibrium. Above the wet bulb temperature, there is more evaporation, transferring heat from the water to ambient air. Below it, there is more condensation, transferring heat from ambient air to the water.
Except at 100% humidity, this is higher than the dew point, which is the temperature where water spontaneously condenses out of the air.
Dunno about being in the sun, but if you don’t have AC and the house is at ambient temp you might as well be outside (normally in the shade) as you’ll at least get some air.
Depending on design, houses can be above ambient outdoor temperature without AC
If you don't have AC there are things you can do to your home keep the temp low through the day. You essentially trap the cooler evening air and keep the sun out.
That's the normal way to do it, but it doesn't work when there's no wind and air temp doesn't cool down significantly at night. Even fans throughout the dwelling don't end up cooling that much overall, because they really only move the air that's in their path (unless you already have ceiling fans to create larger turbulences and better mix the air).
In high humidity by wearing a shirt doused in tap water you cool down by heating up your t-shirt. This method does not work if water comes out of your tap already hot. This only happens rarely. In dry environments evaporative cooling helps but it is not necessary to be effective.
I recommend using shirts made of elastic breathable material such as under armor shirts for comfort. Cotton tends to stick to your skin extra and feel really nasty.
I don't doubt it helps in the short term - I live in the southeast and I've done this when hiking many times (once my shirt's already soaked from sweat and I can find a cool stream) - but it only provides a temporary respite.
Even here on the coast of BC where humidity is higher (and temps slightly lower), it's reasonably dry right now. Beach towels we put out to dry in the sun are dry in a few minutes.
Not as dry as Spokane, however.
> While some heat-humidity impacts can be avoided through acclimation and behavioral adaptation (12), there exists an upper limit for survivability under sustained exposure, even with idealized conditions of perfect health, total inactivity, full shade, absence of clothing, and unlimited drinking water (9, 10). A normal internal human body temperature of 36.8° ± 0.5°C requires skin temperatures of around 35°C to maintain a gradient directing heat outward from the core (10, 13). Once the air (dry-bulb) temperature (T) rises above this threshold, metabolic heat can only be shed via sweat-based latent cooling, and at TW exceeding about 35°C, this cooling mechanism loses its effectiveness altogether. Because the ideal physiological and behavioral assumptions are almost never met, severe mortality and morbidity impacts typically occur at much lower values—for example, regions affected by the deadly 2003 European and 2010 Russian heat waves experienced TW values no greater than 28°C (fig. S1). In the literature to date, there have been no observational reports of TW exceeding 35°C and few reports exceeding 33°C (9, 11, 14, 15). The awareness of a physiological limit has prompted modeling studies to ask how soon it may be crossed. Results suggest that, under the business-as-usual RCP8.5 emissions scenario, TW could regularly exceed 35°C in parts of South Asia and the Middle East by the third quarter of the 21st century (14–16).
It's best not to assume what you read on the internet is always true. Some people post things that turn out to be utter nonsense. Easily checkable nonsense to boot.
I really hate it because I know it will only make things worse long term but my North European country is rapidly installing AC everywhere now thanks to increasing heatwaves.
I can’t even imagine how hot it would have felt at 95° F or higher with the same humidity—I wouldn’t be surprised if it was deadly.
But I guess you're right -- I've had friends heat stroke after 2-3 hrs of unshaded exposure when it hits ~92+ i.e. soccer pickup games. Shade will carry you a long way, even without AC though -- I have extended family in La Guajira that still lives like this.
> But I guess you're right -- I've had friends heat stroke after 2-3 hrs of unshaded exposure when it hits ~92+ i.e. soccer pickup games. Shade will carry you a long way, even without AC though -- I have extended family in La Guajira that still lives like this.
Oof...yep, same experience, especially when the sun isn't occluded by clouds. It's gnarly.
From https://www.houstontx.gov/health/Epidemiology/e-heat-illness....:
> In the summer of 2000, 26 deaths involving Houston residents were reported. In 2001, 13 deaths were due to heat.
From https://environmenttexas.org/news/txe/global-warming-increas...:
> Thursday, September 6, 2007, HOUSTON – The death toll from extreme heat in Houston each summer will increase from about 24 to nearly 32, resulting in 192 additional heat-related deaths by mid-century
> > Thursday, September 6, 2007, HOUSTON – The death toll from extreme heat in Houston each summer will increase from about 24 to nearly 32
The actual number of heat deaths in Houston and Harris County in 2018 was 15; Houston itself sees 4–6 per year. Maybe air conditioning is more common a decade later than was originally predicted, or perhaps medical intervention arrives more quickly or is more effective.
Sources: https://nihhis.cpo.noaa.gov/Urban-Heat-Island-Mapping/Campai... and https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/in-depth/20...
The reason why I think this distinction is important is because there is some level of heat + humidity where it really does mean death to anyone in some short amount of time.
You soft western babies with your dry saunas. Over there the banya is kept at 110% humidity, and old men beat you with sticks the whole time.
I’m sure there are many other places as well.
You can convert with a psychrometric chart [1] or with a calculator [2]. At sea level, 35 C dry bulb, 80% humidity is about 32 C wet bulb. Dangerously hot, yes, but it won't kill you in 15 minutes.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Psychrom...
> Wet bulb thermometer readings are significantly lower than the more familiar dry bulb readings, which do not take humidity into account. Researchers say that at a wet bulb reading of 35C, the body can no longer cool itself by sweating and such a temperature can be fatal in a few hours, even to the fittest people.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people...
It feels good at the beginning because the water is cold, but your body will heat the water and it won't be that good. There are special small tower make of platic fiber that will retain more water.
The best way is to drink a lot of water, to use an small pump atomizer that you can refill.
Wetting your hair as it can retain water is also a good solution.
Running water (such as a stream) is going to likely be better as you rarely have 100 degree water, but I’m assuming the same applies.
1. Put a frozen water bottle under your shirt. Keep backups in the freezer to cycle from. It seriously feels amazing and sucks the heat out of your body.
2. Use two or more fans, one good one to blow air at yourself and another one that is redirecting hot air away from you (so it's facing somewhere away from you). It's just like how airflow in a computer works I guess lol
3. Have ice always available, drink a ton of ice water and stay hydrated.
The difference between doing these things and not doing these things for me is having a somewhat productive day vs spending the whole day doing nothing.
See [1]
[1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/billions-face-deadly-threshold-h...
About ten years ago we installed solar panels so now air conditioning is basically free during the day, but I still like the ice cold showers.
Instead, we ended up taking our baseball caps, dipping them in freezing cold water coolers, and putting them on our head. You'd get like, 20 minutes of relief before returning to dunk the hat again. Having the soaking hat drip on your face and neck provides a similar experience to running your head under cold water without needing an accessible spigot.
It's great the first couple minutes, though.
No sweat when facing >35 degrees inside. Why in the world would you have to deal with >35c inside? Do you do construction? Frequent power failures?
Of course, when a heat wave comes, everyone wants to buy one of those windows or floor units, but then they sell out at every store in a few days.
I don't have AC in our house, but we do ga e a basement that stays cool even in extreme heat. Not that fun living in a basement, but realistically the AC would only get used a few days a year in average.
Before: cold kills 20 people, heat kills 1 person. Cold kills 20x more, for a total of 21 deaths.
After: cold kills 15 people, heat kills 15 people. Cold kills the same number of people as heat, for a total of 30 deaths.
"However, if—as the data seem to show—extreme cold is relatively unimportant, then a few degrees of warming will not yield a large reduction in cold-related mortality. Moreover, if extreme heat is important, then the same few additional degrees might cause a substantial increase in heat-related mortality."
The study warns that global warming won't appreciably reduce deaths due to cold, but might substantially increase deaths due to heat. Again, the current 20-fold factor between deaths due to cold and heat says nothing about future mortality.
I tried it with pants as well but if you do so, don't wetten it above the pockets as the multi-layer will make it damp without much of the adiabatic cooling perks.