I hear you. It has not been as hot here as there, so the humidity is much lower than normal. That doesn't make up for our drought conditions, though. I feel like I do at the first major snowstorm of winter...stock up the woodpile and hunker down, it's gonna be a long one.

"I am pooped out and tired of summer already."

Ah...no. Not me. No, no and, uh, no.

Just a reminder...

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tj

We don't get much of that stuff. We had one good snow last year of 15 inches and then maybe a trace here and there. We are usually fairly dry in the winter. In the last two years we have been dry in the summer too. Our winters our pretty nice overall. It can get cold. I have seen it 70 one day and then drop down to 20 degrees the next in Jan. I am not sure what clothes to wear sometimes. I know, I know when winter comes I will be wanting summer, I just wish we could get a break on some of this heat.

I'm usually tired of summer before it even starts. My favorite seasons are fall and winter, because it's cool out. Give me a frigid, snowy, below-zero day anytime over this garbage. Or even a 50s and misty day. I never thought I'd be tired of sunny weather, but it hasn't rained more than 1/2 inch in the last month! And it's hot and windy, to boot. Conifers just can't handle this weather - the spruces are starting to weaken around here. (Pines and hemlock are doing fine, on the other hand)

I like summer best but it is very hard to like 108, 109, and even 111 which is what they have now predicted today. I can handle 90's or even low hundreds, but it has been so windy to go along with it that it dries out everything so fast and feels like a blast furnace.

I'm usually tired of summer before it even starts. My favorite seasons are fall and winter, because it's cool out. Give me a frigid, snowy, below-zero day anytime over this garbage. Or even a 50s and misty day.

Yep! Although I typically like June. After the 4th of July I despise July and usually August just as much as Jan and Feb. Those are the 4 worst months IMO. September and October are like gold to me. Honestly I can't wait until September right now...the smell of the air, things are more relaxed, can plant again and football.

I am totally with whaas, except for the football part! I am even coming to tolerate that a little in my, uh, advanced stage of life. Give me a sparkling Fall day even over Spring.

Today we are having our last cool day for awhile...after today it is all nineties but one, lone 88 degree day.

And people tell me I am in the wrong business, with my hay fever allergies and extreme dislike of the heat. I guess they have a point.

I think we all long for a little more moderation. Here in the Pacific Northwest MOST days are cloudy, misty and cool. Lately , for about the last four weeks, we broke 75 ONCE and as you can see from the link many days the HIGHS were in the mid to upper 50s. This gets a bit tiring too, as it's 'Summer' and plants are barely growing. Even people around here, used to our normally drizzly, cool environment have felt this is too much. Maybe they'll move out to the Midwest only to move back the following year after their asses burn off. :)

-Will

Here is a link that might be useful: Hobbiton weather

Not terrible for May and June but coupled with no rain it hasn't been pretty. We all want what we can't have thats for sure.

The hotter temps have actually been more dry with humidity in the 30s. This week the humidity is going to skyrocket. Heat, humidity and excessively dry soils is going to wreak havoc on some plants.

March and April where bastards too. March was way above normal, then late April's lows just outright killed some plants with the freezes.

To sum it up, I'm sure there is some normalizing if you average it all out but the peaks and valleys are just all over the map. April freezes brought May deaths and May recoveries brought June scorching and drought.

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Welcome to the anthropocene epoc. We're lucky to witness the meager start of a new era.

Anyway. I love the heat and the cold and everything inbetween.
Hot and humid is best though!

As long as it aint dry. I simply can't take a dry spell longer than a week. We're on week 3. :-(

hogmanay,

Not sure if I buy anthropocene stuff. Weather has been like this forever. We don't exactly have good memories nor actually read old newspaper clippings over weather. 1930s was the worst of all. Observing weather is apparently one of my hobbies so I tend to study how climate works, etc. The warm winter we saw in USA except for west coast can be linked to La Nina. We are now transitioning to El Nino which unfortunately means hotter summer for USA. HOWEVER, el Nino can mean brutal cold weather for USA. Totally the opposite of La Nina.

We are in now a cold Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) which can mean more and long lasting La Nina for the next 20-30 years with occasional and short lasting El Nino in between (it's a drought buster for Texas and southwest USA).

It appears that Solar activity can play a significant role. During Little Ice Age, there was a very little solar activity. Right now, we are seeing weakest solar activity in 100 years (approaching peak but still low). The next solar cycle is predicted to be even weaker. http://nextgrandminimum.wordpress.com/ - We've had satellites for the whole period of warm PDO which likely pushed global warming and now we have cold PDO and we'll learn a lot more for the next 20-30 years on how it influences weather around the world. Same for Arctic ice. It turned out that there used to be very cyclical over the amount of ice in the north pole (lots of pictures and historical papers but not generally shown to public by mainstream media.)

I like this website for the history of weather - http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/

I often visit this website to learn about climate stuff - http://wattsupwiththat.com/

It's going to be interesting for the next 20-30 years now that we have satellites to observe weather patterns to compare the difference between warm and cold PDO.

lou

You have a choice, read the last 50 years of science on the topic or don't. Consensus has been building in the scientific community for decades.

I congratulate you on bringing up every distraction on the top of the list. Continue to do so if you like, but that does not change fact.

FWIW, I've been to Dr. Christies' lectures, read Mockton, Watts and all the rest. I've even studied the published papers on solar activity and cosmic radiation and every other theory that tried to explain the climate forces. I was once a person who refused to accept the simple facts about what we've done to the climate. No longer.

Yes. It will be record hot, record cold, record dry and record wet in the anthropocene. Weather is weather. That does not change the fact man's activity has warmed the planet and will continue to do so.

Here is a link that might be useful: myths debunked with science, well cited

Everyone has opinions on the matter. Because it is science does not make it fact. Facts are something that can be proven. Until it happens it can't be proven. If it does happen, then it was a fact.

Yes...every time someone posts a thread on the weather the conversation gravitates to the pros and cons of global warming.

There are strong feelings concerning this subject matter and sometimes the conservations can be heated.

I have been around for sometime. I have also seen these weather patterns come and go. I am not convinced one way or the other and my concerns end there.

All I know is this Midwest heat wave and drought is serious and I am up against the wall trying to save my garden. 4.30 inches of rain since April. 100 + clear into next week with no end in site.

Dave

It's the end of the world Dave, mark your calendar.
Sorry, I could not resist.

Want to see something interesting? look at the weather records for 1936. 100 or above for much of the eastern 2/3 of the country 27 or more days for the summer, with little rain. A lot of other drought years in the '10s, '20s and '30s... It's been this hot before; in fact, it's been worse. Don't know what this summer has in store - Hopefully we're getting the heat done with now.

An interesting opinion of mine on global warming: Wasn't the pollution and carbon emissions way worse in the early 20th century? I mean, with all those coal-operated factories, locomotives, buildings, and furnaces, as well as no regulations on pollution, weren't the 1930s far worse?

Yes it was worse, but scientist have to show what they learned in school and try to scare us to death. Now, would it hurt to get better emissions control, no, maybe we should keep going in the direction we are.
People can believe what they want. It is their choice to believe in what people tell them without knowing for sure. I have an opinion, you have an opinion, they have an opinion on the THEORY that scientists now have. If the world comes to an end, so be it. I have had fun planting my conifers.

Jim Bob: Global Warming is said to be a cumulative effect caused by the gradual increase in atomospheric CO2 levels. Things done in the Industrial Age (and by extension, things we do today to mitigate CO2 production) have no immediate impact on global temperatures, but are believed to produce results decades/centuries down the line.

That being said, the data clearly show temperatures have increased modestly over the past 100 years. We also know that CO2 levels in the atomosphere have increased substantially. The question is whether there is a causal relationship between these two observations...in other words, are the increases in temperature anthropogenic (man made)...or not?

Like Dave, I remain unconvinced either way. The subject has become so politicized that it is difficult to trust many of the information sources being cited (and yes, scientists can be very political).

Emissions controls must be doing something - I don't ever remember the sky being this clear, and neither does my grandpa. He thinks that lower pollution levels are what is making the sky so clear and the sun so brilliant! Actually, if you stay in during the day and go out in the evening or early morning, it is really nice!

Global warming or not, I agree with reducing pollution! IMHO pollution is a larger and more immediate threat, especially when you see the results of mountaintop removal, hydro-fracking, lack of regulation on industrial dumping. Heck AG runoff is one of the biggest polluters and is largely responsible for serious environmental degradation.

The big corporation run Agro business with their large government subsidies and entrenched lobbying in DC are the biggest polluters of ponds, streams and lakes in the country.

Most of their produce is laced with toxic sprays.

It looks good on the shelf but beware.

Invest in your local home grown farm market produce. One way you can put the hurt on these tainted food growing monsters.

Dave

"Invest in your local home grown farm market produce. One way you can put the hurt on these tainted food growing monsters."

this is the answer to stopping environmental degredation. Any of the mega-corporate US farms are, by far, the worst polluters in the world...

Around Madison WI we just broke a record set in 1895 for least rainfall in June=.031". This year is the warmest on record so far ever for this area. Temperatures are forecast in the mid to upper nineties all week. This is not the norm in S. Wisconsin. There is no relief in sight-- which could spell disaster for farmers if a good soaking rain doesn't fall soon.

We all have our 'theories' of who or what is influencing the weather, but our hearts go out to all you suffering Midwesterners. I just finished Timothy Egan's book "The Worst Hard Time" about the dust bowl years. What a ghastly thing to live through!

If we could figure out how to send you some Seattle rain, we would! Dave, exhaust every effort to save that garden!

Ellen

How about those smoking cigarette restrictions or grilling restrictions for Wisconsin. I was talking to my friend last evening and she told me it's so dry that people aren't to grill or smoke outdoors until after it rains. I feel for ya. And hang in there Dave.

I lost nearly all my Pinus parviflora collection last summer. Plus a Pinus strobus I had the only graft of. Eight years old and the size of a softball. I was going to begin grafting it last winter, but unfortunately, the 110 degree temps cooked it, prior. It was widespread devastation among my landscape plants, but man was it really crushing on the soft pines.

Dax

Well, yesterday and today shattered the previous highs.

How far above average are some of you running? I know some areas average low 90s so the lows 100s aren't all that crazy I guess. None the less too hot its what it boils down to.

For me its 20 degrees above average. Personally I've never seen it above 100 this time of year...maybe thats because its never happened in over 100 years!

What a joke this is after the April freezes. Might not be so bad if only a 1/2" of rain fell in the last 45 days. I'm dieing here.

It was 110 f. one day last July. What do you think that feels like with humidity--think Persian Gulf. Saturday should be low 100's. Normal high is about 86 f but there have been a lot of days into the low to upper 90's already. Humidity and evening low temps don't max out till August though when lows as high as 80 are not that uncommon in metro areas. But luckily, we are not in drought as of yet.

Heat finally hitting the Pacific Northwest. We're supposed to see temps in the upper 80s and low 90s this next week, very warm for this area. Hoping you guys get some gnarly downpours, hang in there!

-Will

Hi Will; I'm glad I don't use the same weather forecaster that you do. Weather.com doesn't have me going over low 80s over the next 10 days. Definitely looks like they've turned off the rain. Now comes the season of standing around at the end of the hose every day until September.

Stay cool my friends,
~Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: my weather.

Seattleites start complaining about the heat wave when it hits 75 degrees. Egad.

So sorry for the heat. I would be heartbroken to lose those beloved plants.

July 4th was over 70, no rain, and sunshine! According to the local forecasters, that has only happened here 9 times since 1949.
It got up to 75 at my place today. I took the hot part of the day off. At least the humidity was low.
I can hardly imagine temps near 100, much less trying to work in it.
Keep those plants watered.
Mike

My Tsuga mertensiana 'Elizabeth' got annihilated today.

This plant was healthy, full and blue 2 days ago. I can't believe how quickly it choked. I noticed SEVERAL other plants getting "that look". Its mainly all the stuff I planted this spring.

{{gwi:760536}}

Yeah...post with hot in the subject line, 31 responses, had to involve AGW LOL.

I feel your pain whaas. I'm right there with ya.

I just got back from a 6 day business trip in New York city and new that I would be coming home to find some of my little treasures succumbing to the drought and heat. My Abies concolor 'Archer's Dwarf' has turned from bright blue to a despondent shade of pink. A nice dead color though. Rest in peace little buddy.

My in-laws came by almost every day to check on our baby girls, the spoiled chickens, and to water everything while we were gone. I'm sure to loose a few more of my young ones that were planted this spring. Tsuga canadensis 'Everitt's Golden' might be next destined for the compost pile. This 105 weather is just too hot and no sign of rain. Giant cracks are starting to fissure through my beds and I can't water enough. Many of my golds are burning even with shade cloth. I my have to build shade barriers from all sides for some of them. Even morning sun is scorching hot. =(

Well, the grass is almost all dead so I don't have to waste my life mowing anymore this summer. That's a plus =)

We're setting records left and right here and I am watering more than I have ever watered before.
The previous run of weather like this in my area was 1936.

I am exhausted from watering- I can't plan a day without allowing for it and even after doing so I feel as if I am barely keeping things alive.
I have so many mature old oaks and hickories that suck up all the water I put down for my baby shrubs that I feel as if I am watering the entire planet.

No matter how early I go out it is sticky and muggy and miserable. Last night I broke all the rules by watering after dark- I know it encourages fungal activity but my dying of a heat stroke would be equally bad :)
I watered from 9pm to just after midnight and it was a far more enjoyable activity than doing it in the blazing sun, but now the neighbors KNOW I am crazy. I had on white socks and sandals with my pant legs taped so bugs couldn't get me and a long sleeved corduroy shirt buttoned up tight.
But I don't have to go out there this morning!!!
Who's crazy now?!?!?!

Seriously- this crap can end any moment now.
Being angry at the weather is futile but I swear I am taking it personally this year, lol

That sucks, that was a nice one too!

I'm amazed at how these conifers get smoked in the heat.

None of my decidious plants are dieing. The worst I've observed is limp leaves on Clethra and Hydrangea then some sun scroch on JMs.

The soft pines are getting hit hard. Only the ones in part sun are doing ok. To my surprise (so far) my firs are doing ok. Abies veitchii 'Heddergott' will be the first to die though. Its a shame as I really like that one.

Last four days where 100, 104, 102 and 100 (forecast today). As hot as of some zone 6'ers far south of me. All four days broke records.

The hottest DAY of ALL TIME was 105 set in late July 1999. That should give an idea of how extremely abnormal the temps are here in WI. 24 degrees above average 2 days ago.

I don't know if I had tears or if those where the sweat bullets pouring from face while watering last night as I witnessed the condition of some of my plants.

Another interesting observation is that the only flying bugs I've seen are fireflys and a few mosquitos. No japanese beetles, butterflies, honeybees, wasps, hornets.

Complaining is welcomed in this thread right?

I'm going to feel pretty good about mail ordering the majority of my plants for fall.

I have just a few conifers and they seem to be doing well despite the heat. In particular no problems with my Hemlocks ( which seem strangely immune to the whole adelgid problem I read about) . Mugo and Bosnian Pine also look good as do the deciduous conifers (bald cypress and dawn reds). The only other conifers I have are a couple of varieties of Araucaria which are kept shaded by a big oak tree, podocarpus, and a few Japanese Plum Yews (Cephalotaxus).--True yews got eaten by deer.

Can't believe I forgot to include my favorrite conifers in the collection--Cedrus atlantica (both the pendula and standard variety). Both of which tolerate heat well.

Hemlock look fine... Everything else is alive as far as i can tell. The fans in the window don't help much when its 102F.

National Weather Service: "High temperatures in the next work week will be closer to normal...in the 80s"

Halleluja!

There's a product availlable with the name "Wiltpruf" which can help you to avoid furthur conifer losses when they are growing in hot circumstances.
Hit the link and you'll see what I mean.

I also mentioned this yesterday in David's topic "Follow up from spring", but I guess that nobody red it...

Here is a link that might be useful: wiltpruf

Just saw your Wiltpruf product recommendation. Thanks Edwin! I'll give it a try. I'm sure it would have helped keep my Abies procera 'Blaue Hexe' alive. I watered it plenty and it even was shaded a bit in the afternoon. The heat just sucked the moisture right out of the needles.

I was getting kind of depressed as I just lost 3 to the heat. This may give me some hope. I also realized that now I have 3 open spaces to fill. I'm definately going with species that are heat and drought tolerant now. Yay! Time to go online conifer shopping. Like I ever stopped.