Hottest Day of the Year

 

        Today was the hottest day since 2009, when Sea-tac measured 103F, breaking the all-time record.  I remember that day well.  As I was leaving work around 3pm, I walked into the sunlight and the heat felt blistering.  Today the high was 98F, but the mugginess factor made it feel even hotter than the record breaker.  It felt even hotter than Thailand today, and that’s saying something. 

        Mom came over at 5pm, just as the temperature was peaking.  She brought us a nice Thai dinner, which we ate quickly hoping to get outside, where we thought it might be cooler.  But it certainly wasn’t.  My son and I played frisbee catch with her for all but 5 minutes before she complained about it being too hot.  I started sweating the minute I stepped outside, noticing that a classic overcast sky had come in over the afternoon, which is known to trap heat and water vapor on our muggiest days.   

        My son didn’t seem to notice it was hot.  He wasn’t even sweating.  His heating system must be perfect, as any normal human would have sweat out there, even a one-year-old.  But no, my son was running after that frisbee as if it were a crisp autumn evening. 

        Later as we got in bed with the A/C on full blast, we started hearing thunderstorms.  What made it exciting is I can’t remember a time when the high was over 90F and hearing thunderstorms on the same day.  To have a 98F scorcher coupled with thunderstorms must be a phenomenal rarity in these parts.  I got so excited that we rolled up the window so we could see outside as the sky got darker and darker, dashed by hints of purple from the pink sunset beyond.  My son’s silhouette is etched on my brain, pointing at the sky with the same excitement I had, repeating “Thunder!” like his daddy as the clouds carved out his upturned body.

        This day also had the highest temperature recorded globally in the last 100 years.  Death Valley reached 130 degrees, still 4 shy of its 1913 world record.  That record is disputed, just like the one in Libya that was standard for a long time.  It may turn out that today’s is the highest temperature ever recorded- perhaps surprising when you consider it’s the second half of August.