How's the weather where you are? Hot? Cold? Perfect? What about the air quality? Can you breathe without making a face? Can you taste the exhaust fumes and the smoke from last night's barbecue? Do you hide inside when the weather gets bad, or do you run out and face the elements?

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

Answers

Doubly hot. I have a sweaty 11 pound 98.6 degree tumor on my chest 24/7.

(ok, she is not really a tumor-- I jest.)

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

It's humid here. Humid, damp, cloudy and miserable. It's been raining for days now, and when the rain stops the air is thick with fog and moisture. Everything smells like old shoes and rotting corpses.

When it's like this in New York, everyone is in a bad mood. Fights break out on the street and couples argue loudly beside open windows. Homeless people and junkies curl up in doorways or boxes and when you pass them they shift and moan, but they'll still be there when you walk by 9 hours later.

They say that it'll be less humid this weekend. They said that last week too. Liars.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

Seattle is at present making up for nine solid months of gray rainy misery by giving us three perfect months of lovely sunshine.

The weather has been fluctuating between 70 and 85 degrees (at 85, the locals start complaining about the "heat wave"), it hasn't rained for weeks, and the sky is a perfect blue. And the air is clean. I remember the four summers I spent in Chicago (humid, hot, and unlivable) and shudder. There were days in the summertime that I'd go downstairs, open the door to the outside, get hit with a furnace blast of heat, and walk right back inside to stay indoors in the shade (we didn't even have A/C) all day. It's just not worth making any kind of effort to do anything in heat like that.

Seattle's summertime weather is outstanding. It really does make up for the horrid wet winters, in my opinion.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

It's miserable. Miserably hot in Folsom, miserably hot in Midtown (and my house has no A/C). I hijacked my bf's house in Fair Oaks, with trees and river, which is a little nicer than the rest of the area at the moment. But it's still too damn hot.

I'm sad I missed the block party. =(

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

Oh, Rae, I feel for you. We went through this for three summers without air conditioning. (Longer than that, actually, but that apartment was particularly bad.) Go to the movies. Go to a lot of movies. Hang out on the docks in old Sac and eat some ice cream. Put ice packs in your bed.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

It's finally stopped raining in Raleigh, NC, and we're having one of those days that makes you fall in love with weather - huge puffy clouds, not too humid, and 81 degrees.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

93% humidity. It's around 90 degrees. Hazy, hot, and humid have been the weather words for the past few days and will be for the next few, as well. I take comfort in the fact that some Republican fat cats and members of the media are suffering as well. Those stand-up reporters who are making such a big deal out of the protests are outside, feeling the heat. The talking heads are in the Convention Center, where it's nice and cool.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

In the San Francisco Bay Area heat waves are short and localized. They typically last only a few hours with temps near the Bay dipping into the 50's at night. While it was 1000+ in some parts of the Bay Area, it reached only 650 in Pacifica. Somewhere in between it was perfect.

My house is well insulated; we cool it off at night with the windows open and keep it sealed up during the day (no air conditioner). ...we pay extra to live here!

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

I have never seen so many movies before. I'm very grateful for the Birdcage cinemas. And Tower.

It was helping before to open the windows at night and shut them before work, but it's not cooling off enough for that. I've taken to sleeping in my basement when I can bring myself to stay at home, the only room in the house that's a decent temperature. Although the ice packs sound like a good idea...and the ice cream too.

This is my third summer here. You'd think I would have learned by now.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

It's hot here in the silicon valley. Apparently 85 degrees or so. It's a dry heat, though, and the air quality seems okay. Not great but okay.

I like it hot. We spent most of Sunday sitting in the back yard with guests, and we even had a barbeque. It was just perfect, especially since we have one of those mister things you attach to the hose. It felt good.

Inside the house at night, it's too hot. Our house isn't very well insulated and we don't have air conditioning and it can be hard to sleep. I think getting the attic insulated is going to be our next big project. Either that or we've got to figure out some way to sleep outside. Our neighbors' screened in porch is very inviting...

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

i spend my whole life in ac (work/home) so i like to go out and feel the heat. late last night i went to penns landing with a friend to check out the fat-cat republican-owned yachts tied up there. it was quiet, few people were around as the reporters/protesters scared everyone away. it was muggy in phila as laura attested to, and i imagined being in the cayman islands where the yachts are proudly registered (so say the placards,...its a great country), drinking a manhattan on ice, wondering who i would allow access to my yacht. seeing those yachts i could feel the power of being rich. they had white pile carpeting inside the common areas, and pale beige sofas and chairs,(in a boat for cryingoutloud) everything was so shiny. then a helicopter flew over my head, and i was back in philadelphia. (http://www.atl.external.lmco.com/philaview/philaview.html)

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

I don't have AC either. We have a swamp cooler and cinderblock, and we've put misters on the front porch (no missuses, just misters) which helps a lot. But we really need that Delta Breeze at night!

I'll be taking "Sam" swimming in an hour, and I just will not want to get back in the car when we're done. (I'm also wearing a shirt this time...I got really badly sunburnt last time.)

It's supposed to cool off to a frigid 98 or so in a couple of days. I'm heading to that wonderful Seattle the other Jan talks about, though, and I'll think about you poor folks suffering here. (Yeah, right.)

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

It's been wet here. Lots of Michigan summertime rain - the kind that; while the deluge occurs, cools the air and stirs up a stiff breeze. Once the rain breaks; the sun comes back out and cooks all that water back into humidity. After a rain; the air is an oppresive weight bearing down on my shoulders and entangling my feet.

Overall, though, I can't really complain. The promised hot, dry, summer hasn't developed yet. I don't think we have broken the 90s yet. Plenty of rain and a cool summer may promise lots of early winter snow to help replenish the Great Lakes levels.

Of course, now that the vegetable garden is working hard; any discussion of the weather brings to mind the joke about the three prostitutes discussing last nights tricks.....

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

It is titty-drooping hot and humid in the wasteland we call Dallas, Texas. 100+ degrees today and more of the same to look forward to for the next few days. To top it off, we are in a RED ALERT air pollution watch. I shouldn't complain because I do have a/c, but this heat and humidity is oppressive and it makes me cranky.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

Here in Baltimore, it's a lot like Philly - hot and humid. But it just started getting hot this week. Before it was warm and humid.

Just out of curiosity, is everyone else on the east coast getting as much rain as we are? I guess actual quantity-wise we're not breaking any records, but the weatherman last night said that we have not gone more than 2 days without rain since May.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

Well, I live 20 minutes from you, so the weather is much the same. I did an article on a spare-the-air program in the county and the head of it told me we'd had four bad air days (this was counting Monday) so far, but way more to come in August. I walk around a lot in this town, and it is pretty damn smothery out there. Not completely looking forward to walking to my meeting tonight, but oh well. I usually hide out.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada:

Currently sunny, with a high of 20 degrees Celsius (I don't know the Farenheit conversion, sorry). It's the first day in a week or so that the weather is this crappy, but I'm really feeling ripped off that we aren't getting the hot sticky weather everyone else is. It may be uncomfortable, but at least you're getting a real summer. July sucked ass weather-wise, with daily rain, thunderstorms, tornadoes (I kid you not-- there was one last night). It's been cold and miserable for the most part. And rainy. Did I mention rainy?

August had better be summery, or I'll be very mad.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

111 degrees and 30% humidity here in God's arm pit. And it will be like this until November when it will plunge to an icy 90 degrees with 8% humidity.

Lindsay in La Qunita

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

Here in Chicago, we've had a pretty decent summer. However, lately it's what I call "walking in the sponge" weather. You go outside, doesn't feel too bad at first, but then the sponge-effect takes over and the humidity causes one to feel like a damp sponge is being squashed over your nose as you walk. Otherwise, pretty jiffy (as in "not too bad"). By the way, does anyone else look at the word "sponge" and think that it's not spelled correctly? It just looks weird, even though Webster's says it's right. Maybe it's the humidity.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

Sweet home, Chicago! My daughter loves telling me that the temperature is in the 70's when I bitch about the oppressive Texas heat.

Was it really 100+ today, Carmen? I haven't ventured out of the house all day. Just been vegging in front of the A/C.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

As far as I'm concerned, the weather in Berkeley is perfect. Warm enough to be pleasant and cool enough to be ... well ditto:)

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2000

Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley are unbearably hot and humid. LA is generally cooler than the Valley, but the humidity is STIFLING in the afternoon. At 9am, I was in Burbank: it was already in the mid-to-upper 80's. Note to self: don't hang out in the Valley for long. Got back to LA around 2pm and was stunned at how much it felt like the Valley. Even the coast is baking. Just can't seem to win, and it's only going to get worse. I long for Berkeley and the Bay

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2000

Ha! Sitting in London, with overcast skies and heavy rain warnings, hunting out a jersey to wear today ... let's just say my heart bleeds for you all.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2000

Being in Sydney, Australia, it's actually winter here right now, and will be for the rest of this month. So weather's not hugely warm here. I'll take the winter chill over the summer heat any day, though

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2000

Beth, please send some of that heat my way. The continuous drizzle overhere is driving me up the wall!

Speaking of foul air - the onion farm close to where I work is in the process of harvesting right now. The entire town smells like it didn't take a shower today.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2000

Weather here in Indianapolis has been pretty decent this summer. Has very rarely cracked 90. We've had some muggy days, but also lots of days in July that we did not turn on the air conditioning. Well, Holly, my daughter, is living with me and she doesn't like air conditioning ever. So when I was home yesterday (personal business day) I did not turn on the air conditioning since it was her day off. It wasn't too bad, but as soon as she left for a dance class in the evening I ran for it and turned it on. However, today is in the low 80's so I turned it off again this morning.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2000

I think it's been cool and gray and rainy in Blacksburg for about a month, but then I haven't been getting outside much lately. It seems like there's a thunderstorm every day at around 4:30 p.m., which dumps a vast load of water on us (the plants on my patio are soaking wet), knocks out my power for a few minutes, and then moves on. It hasn't been too hot, fortunately, or the humidity would be killer.

My colleagues, who all told me that the weather was perfect here when I was being recruited, say that all this rain is an anomaly.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2000

Rained stair-rods here in Edinburgh yesterday, nearly all day, with crashing thunder at times. My gutters are blocked, so there was an attractive waterfall effect at the back of the house.

Scots complain constantly about the weather, especially in summer (usually two weeks in May), but I quite like it. I like the variety, the surprises. I even like haar, the thick sea fog that often lays its chilly Calvinist hand on us after a few days of sun.

But I would appreciate a few rays to dry out the washing that I hung out to dry before the deluge...

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2000

Well, here in Upstate NY, we have had a fairly cool summer and I love it! Most days have been in the high 70's or low 80's. We got a lot of rain at the beginning of the summer, but not as much in July.

This week has reminded me what I hate about summer -- it's been hotter and really humid. That sticky, I don't want to move or eat or think kind of weather. Because we don't get much of that weather, it's not really cost-effective to have air-conditioning in homes (although it's becoming more common), so you just have to suffer through it. I realize it's hardly hot compared to other parts of the country, and we've had a great summer so far, so I'm not complaining (much). Plus it's supposed to rain today and then go back to daily highs of 78 for the weekend.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2000

Yesterday sucked. It was 101 with 95% humidity. The dew point was ten less than the temperature. Today isn't better. A/C - here I come!

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2000

Three days ago I was in NW Louisiana, dying of the heat/humidity. It was absolutely awful.

I am now visiting friends in Seattle and I don't think I"m going to go home next week. I can't leave this weather. It needs me and I need it. It's so beautiful up here. *sigh* Of course, when I step off the plane next Weds. at home it will be the usual, 95 degrees, 90% humidity, and I'll probably want to pass out from the temp. difference.

I'm going to stay here, I think. The weather is much nicer.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000

Here in Denver, we have smoke. And more smoke. And no rain of any measure since May. Twenty-six days in July were over 90 when the average is 11. The heat's not so bad, because it's dry, but we are used to having it broken every afternoon with a thunderstorm. It might be a dry thunderstorm and any rain is always isolated, but it does cool the area. Round about the beginning of July those storms begin--should begin--with the monsoon systems drawing moisture up from Baja and farther out in the Pacific. This year, though, a high- pressure system has hovered over the Four Corners and shows no sign of moving. It's pulling in winds and air from the north and west instead, pulling in smoke from the West's wildfires. I can make out the foothills, but not the mountains. The extreme dryness is baking the earth, allowing less night-time cooling, and pulling in yet more dry air. It is disheartening. We're accustomed to 300+ days of clear skies and sun in a year, and we want it. I loved Seattle in August, but I couldn't stand six months of iron-gray overcast. I don't mind Denver's hot summer days, because it's dry and blue and sunny. This ozone-y (no wind to clear us out), smoky haze has really got me down.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000

We saw the sun today in a cloudless sky for the first time in about two weeks. Connecticut has been rainy and hot and muggy. But I'm still in love with it. It's that "pleasurable irritation of the new" that I dig so much...

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000