blfenton, never mind the temperature conversions. I can always tell when it is hot or cold outside.

What I am troubled with are:

• If I go to a metric Home Depot, how should I ask for a 2 x 4 piece of lumber and a 4 x 8 sheet of SheetRock?
• When I am driving, how fast am I driving if I see the dial tells me 182 kilometers?
• Will a metric person know what I am talking about if I say, "Pound for pound, John is the superior boxer any day of the week." ?

.

dcarch :-)

I switch back and forth, no rhyme or reason for it. My height is in feet and inches, my weight is pounds. Distance to somewhere is in miles, speed of driving is in km. Building supplies almost always in inches and feet, but cloth is in metres. One litre of milk, but then one gallon for four. Butter is one pound. Temperature is in Celsius for the weather. Snow is in inches/feet. (Usually feet, lol gosh I miss the snow).

I learned imperial measures for my first few years of school, then we switched to metric.

I can quickly convert, more or less, either way, though and it depends on who I’m with.

eta Golf is always measured in yards to me, as well.

Since this area is subject to 100+ periods what I found with watering plants unless they were in containers was less water the better. A speaker explained one time that the plants uptake the water to the leaves. The extreme heat turns that water/sap into steam damaging the plants. I have lost less plants since I stopped watering. If I do water I water at the base and at dusk. Pots if they are in sunlight I move into some type of shade. Luckily I have trees and some dense shrubs that I can slide them under and behind out of direct sunlight. Sorry but I do not remember which speaker it was since over the 20 years the gardening umbrella organization has had monthly speakers.

I learned Celsius this way

0= cold

10 = cool

20 = pleasant

30 = hot

40 = hotter than hell!

It's cooled down 20 degrees F here in Southern Oregon, and it's now "only" 95° today.

I can go back and forth between the systems too, having had to adjust to metric ages ago when living in Europe. Actually, when immersed in it, you don't go back and forth, you think in the local system and just use it normally. I like the metric system better, it's easier to use.

It's exactly the same when living somewhere where one's mother tongue isn't the local language and the local language has been learned. I had this experience too, at the same time. After a short while, you find you just speak in the other language without first translating thoughts from one's mother tongue.

Canada is bimensuric 🙂 so I don’t actually convert most things. I just know what it is.

I think Canada may have made up that word, but it fits.

Thanks for all the Celsius conversion tips! It's a perfectly lovely 82F here today with a little breeze. all the windows and doors are open and it's to get down to 60F tonight. Wonderful!

This afternoon it was 93 with a humidity: 100. It sure felt like it too. Watered part of my garden this afternoon, took a break to cool off and went back out to clean dog mess out back. Enough work for me in the heat. Every day we have scattered showers expected but they haven't come yet. Hoping tomorrow or the next day we get a good drenching.

Olychick, enjoy your evening.

We just hit 105 F. Tomorrow is supposed to be the same. Then a slight cooling down.

I am sure i would sound rude( and just might be) but if i wanted to know the number i would have to ask for it to be converted for me. Just as when i was a cook in a small hospital ( where we worked on to kinds of time) when a nurse called for somthing at a special time, i would call them and tell them to please send the order in real time. so thank you all for when you tahe the time to convert it for me ( and others who do not use the same as you)

No, we didn't "handle" 112-115 degree very well, not having AC! Sunday night I had to take my [more] elderly sister to one of the Cooling Centers our county opened, a few hours there really helped, and the volunteers were wonderful. Today we're happy that it's "only" 90.

As others have noted our plants suffered too, here in addition to my crispy hydrangea, burnt rhododendrons etc., some of our blueberries really took a hit.

Oh, that's sad about your plants. I wonder about our commercial berry fields around here, whether there will be any to harvest. I read they were picking cherries 24 hours around the clock trying to save the crop in Eastern WA. We're the #1 sweet cherry producer in the US, so if they lose the crop, it will be a big financial hit to that economy. Plus, no cherries for us :-( I haven't heard about the apple crop, if it will affect that.

Olychick, I heard a report that the berry growers are really worried. Strawberries are finishing-probably really finished now, blueberries are damaged, raspberries and other berries affected too. I have seen apples get sun scald so I wonder about them. This heat wave has, because it is still ongoing really, much more impact than making people uncomfortable.

The raspberry growers in the Fraser Valley, where it gets really, really hot, are concerned that they may have lost the season. They need cooler temperatures and rain - neither of which are in the forecast for a few more days.

I am sure i would sound rude( and just might be) but if i wanted to know the number i would have to ask for it to be converted for me.

I can’t imagine anyone thinking it’s rude to be asked for a measurement to be converted. Most folks would be more than happy to help, I would hope.🙂

so sorry to hear about the crop damage but glad the weather is breaking (but obviously not as glad as you all).

A quick way to remember the C to F conversion is double the C, "discount" 10% then add 32. 40C > 80 > 72 + 32 = 104F

(and I know that is no where near as easy to remember or calculate as the rest, but it is better than 9/5xC+32)

110F in town but my place is 10 degrees cooler which I'm thankful for. We don't often break 100, and never for this long. Pumping extra water to the garden.

It occurred to me last night that when we got married it was 106 and when I had The Kid it was about that. Wondering what major life event this will bring, lol.

I listened to a program on our CBC up here in Canada. The farmer interviewed said that the raspberries are coming out with white splotches but taste the same. They are being bleached of color. Or burnt to a crisp in the case of the strawberries. The grower with a farm in Richmond BC said that the blueberries are okay right now if they get them in soon enough because they weren't quite ripe yet.

The other problem up here is they don't have enough employees for the harvest. What employees they do have are working shorter hours and starting at 4:30 instead of 5:30 a.m... They would normally start at 5:30 and put in 12 plus hours during harvest time.

Apparently it's nearly impossible to get the people in who used to come in and Canadians in general don't like to do stoop work. I am actually considering doing stoop work. It is seasonal it is a lot of exercise and they could really use people right now.

One more thing. They have fewer places they sell their fruit and so on to as those places shut down for covid. Hopefully we are truly on the mend and our gradual opening doesn't lead to further problems and restaurants will open and farmers will have someone to sell to again.

This year I'm only buy BC cherries and local strawberries. Sorry Washington.

I feel for all of you in triple digits. We are not far behind at 97 and feels like 105. We are in a drought too and tomorrow will be more of the same. We seem to get no rain anymore. I hope the cherry crop out there isn't affected because I love them and eat them all summer.

This is more than just crops being damaged. I saw this report when checking my weather.

Wow! I read the article you posted Lars. It's a diverse planet. I'm sitting here in sweat pants & fuzzy socks, trying to stay warm. We're a fragile species.

C and F match up at -40 degrees.....not that it pops up that often. I get more confused with "lumens" in regard to light bulb brightness. Watt the heck?

Bing cherries weren't very good this year before the heat wave. They've been smaller than usual and not very sweet. Not sure where they came from but I assumed Washington. I hope the blueberries are okay! I wonder how it will affect blackberries and peaches.

Yesterday I saw a large rose bush that must've been a white or yellow rose. The roses were fully formed and every one of them was a light tan. It looked so odd.

This morning when I woke up it was "only" 21C (70F). Aaaaa. In normal times that would be a comfortable high for us for the day, not a morning temperature but I will take it. We will only be in the mid-high 20's today and won't hit 30C I hope the rest of you are more comfortable today as well.

Eileen - That is really odd about the rose bush. Would that be sunbleach after the rose bush had bloomed?

An almost chilly 61F at my place this morning....and with cloudy skies. Never did hit the triple digits here on the island, for which I am very grateful :-)

Aside from berries, almost of all of Washington's fruit is grown east of the Cascades in the Yakima Valley and the Columbia Gorge. Hot and dry weather is the norm there (high desert climate), although admittedly hotter this last week than is typical. Since they are accustomed to triple digit heat, I'm not sure how much of a negative impact - if any - this heat wave will have.

I did see a news broadcast yesterday evening discussing how the extreme heat has accelerated the melting of snowpack and the glaciers on Mt. Rainier and has resulted in very high runoff and river levels.....to the point where flooding is a possibility in some areas. Hard to make the mental jump from extreme heat and no rain to flooding.........

My son has climbed to the top of Ranier (and Baker) a couple of times. He will be disappointed to hear that as it can affect the climbing routes that are open. The area around Whistler is having high melt and runoff leading to flooding fears due to these temperatures as well.

"vgkg Z-7 Va

C and F match up at -40 degrees.....not that it pops up that often. I get more confused with "lumens" in regard to light bulb brightness. Watt the heck?"

Confused? lumens? Don't forget to have fun with foot candles and lux.

Speaking of temperature C and F, don't forget there is also kelvin to play with. Colors have temperature, and they are classified in kelvins.

dcarch

It's quite pleasant near the beach in Los Angeles, with a high of 71°F/21°C (62°F in the morning), but records are still being broken in western Canada. It was 49.6°C/121°F in Lytton BC-according to this Twitter feed, which is hotter than Palm Springs. The temperatures in Lytton are like what is in the Phoenix-Las Vegas-Palm Springs triangle, which includes the hottest parts of Death Valley.

Lars, I remember stopping in Lytton in August years ago while on vacation. We bought the kids Popsicles and they melted before they could eat them. What a mess! It’s always been a hot place but 5OC is ridiculous.

Lytton broke the Canadian historic high record three days in a row. Hopefully this record will stand forever.

I just set up my drip irrigation i've not used in a few years. Yikes it is hot and dry...in NY....rain in our future but can't wrap my head around anything over 100ºF.

I suffered a childhood NorthEast where dad kept temps locked down so low i went South for my first University in NewOrleans....hell hot and humid, 😂. I hated cold until i went through a few NOrleans summers.

LGBTQ BBQ this weekend in the mountains at the farm is predicted to be 65-70º highs. Hallelujah! Menu changes weather dependant.

I've done this for years working in the heat.... Ice cubes in a quart zip-lock, rolled up in a bandana tied around the neck. Re-freeze, re-peat.

Debating whether or not to hit the trail at 97 with a cooling rag. Son in Bend Oregon said it was 109 when he was biking.

"---I just set up my drip irrigation i've not used in a few years---"

Just something to think about.

Be careful with drip system on a hot hot sunny day. With a slow moving water in a black tube under the bright sun, the water temperature can be very hot near the end of a long run.

dcarch.

“Johnny, how my mom used to worry about her big firs falling on her or neighbors' houses (west side). But that was due to too much rain. I think those days are over.”

Definitely over. Too hot and dry for some of the tree species we associate with Oregon. Cost me a pretty penny to have two dead 100’ trees taken down and lost much of my green screen from the street.

John HU Liu

If trees start dying, then the fires will be much worse. This is very concerning.

100s are very rare in Western PA. Last time was 25 years ago. The past several days were in the low 90s and stinking humid. This evening with a storm rolling through it broke. Most people usually only water their vegetable gardens, planters or new plantings with a garden hose if we get a dryer spell. It's unusual for anyone to have a sprinkler system or drip irrigation in their yard. Our weather is predictably unpredictable so the plants are use to having weather swings. The dryer spells (usually Aug) makes the vegetation dig their roots deeper in the ground to find water, so when there is a dry spell they have no problems when it does happen. I can see how in places that constantly have moisture that the plants are drying out. A few years ago we had an exceptionally wet summer. All of my annuals that I planted from seed were falling over when mature. They didn't have hardly any root structure to hold them up because they didn't need to.

I live in the forest, which is continually trying to reclaim the space where my home sits. Late winter this year, I contacted my arborist about whacking back some of the trees, taking down a Redwood that grew too big, too fast (surprise !) and topping out a dead fir to turn it into a shorter snag for wildlife (so it wouldn't fall on my house or the neighbor's, but would provide habitat for birds and other critters). Because of some storms requiring him to provide emergent services before mine, his schedule pushed him into early spring to do my work. It was about the time the birds started nesting, so I put him off for the work until fall.

I was SO thankful because the Redwood provided needed shade during the heat apocalypse, as did the other overgrown trees. The sun was not on my house as much as it would have been, had the other trees been cut or trimmed back. Unfortunately, the Redwood will have to come down. He told me, since our area is really not within their traditional range, that they grow too fast and are too weak to have in proximity to any structures. But with climate change, I've heard that we should start planting Redwoods, because their range is going to spread northward. Just not next to homes.

I never noticed redwoods much north of the California/Oregon border, although I did see a few in Oregon just barely across the border. I never saw any wild redwoods in Washington state, but some may have managed to survive there. Anyway, southern Oregon seems to be the natural border where they grow vigorously wild.

Things may have changed since I last visited Washington state in the 1980s.

The town of Lytton has been ordered to be evacuated due to fire.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/fire-forces-evacuation-of-lytton-b-c-after-days-of-record-breaking-heat-1.5492913

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-wildfires-june-30-2021-1.6085919

Yes, I just heard that. Absolutely devastating for them. The total evacuation alert was ordered at 6pm (PST). And the last I heard there are 50 fires burning in BC with 25% of them human-caused. This is going to be bad. Almost the entire province is pushing extreme and that's almost 2 months early. Campfire bans go into effect tomorrow.

blfenton, this was my place about an hour ago😳

And Jasper, was 39C today. Wow, that’s in the mountains. And in June, yet.

Canada Day is supposed to be the same.

Still think "It'll be just a normal summer" as you said Elmer Fudd?

I bought 20 pounds of Washington grown Sweet cherries at $1.89/lb to freeze dry and may buy more and don't think I'll see them anywhere near this price after this heat wave. Because of the heat other berries ripened faster than heat exhausted pickers could pick or processors could keep up with.

I took pictures of Almond products and prices the other day at Costco. I'll compare next winter when the vegans are trying to find Almond milk. I found 16 Almonds take 1 gallon of water to produce and there are BILLIONS of nuts, well not this year as farmers bulldoze and let groves wither in the heat. Yep, just another summer and you did want examples of price increase, right sport?

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6084492

The wheat and canola crops are taking a beating, too.

“The scorching heat baking large swaths of Western Canada and the United States is pushing up prices for spring wheat and canola to record highs, as hot and dry conditions are likely to hurt the harvests of both, making whatever survives more valuable.“

WA state cherries are currently selling for $2.98 a pound at the most upscale grocery store in the area. And the heat where these grow is not hugely out of line for this time year. It was west of the Cascades where the heat was of major concern and that is NOT a major commercial fruit growing area. Ditto for Elmer's area.

btw, the almond groves are being bulldozed due to drought and lack of irrigation water, not due to heat. This has been going on for a number of years.

UpScale grocery stores around me get $4 to $5 a pound for the sweet cherries. I found them at Aldi's for $1.98 and couldn't believe I did. I'm glad the crop will be fine but will still freeze dry what I have. Question: If they've been bulldozing the almond groves for years how come the almond production and Almond bearing acreage in California has continued to go up year after year including 2020 to 2021?

USDA 2021 California Almond forecast

The comment that west of the Cascades is not a major fruit growing area is not entirely true. There is the Hood River area, a major producer of pears and apples.

The Willamette Valley is a huge berry growing area and blueberry fields are rapidly expanding. I found this information about our other berries; "Oregon ranks number one in the United States in frozen blackberry, Marionberry, and black raspberry production, and is a top 5 producer of frozen red raspberries and boysenberries."

Then there is our Filbert/Hazelnut crop, hopefully it will not be affected.

I know there are lots of commercial berry fields in western WA - Whatcom, Skagit, Thurston and eastern Pierce Counties (and probably some others), all have large berry crops - granted, shrinking because of development, but still providing lots of fruit for the region. And WA is the leading blueberry producer in the country, most of them grown in Western WA. So it's incorrect to believe this couldn't greatly affect the berry crop here. How much it will remains to be seen.

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/oct/16/farmers-go-into-the-blue/

Article about blueberries, but this was also from the same site (re: 2107):

"Raspberries – There were 76,751,000 pounds of red raspberries grown in Washington last year, according to the Lynden-based Washington Red Raspberry Commission, which tracks red raspberries grown on the West Side of the state. Executive Director Henry Bierlink said he’s aware of a few red raspberry farms in Eastern Washington, “but the volume is not significant.”

Strawberries – There were 7,314,716 pounds of strawberries grown in Washington last year, according to the Washington Strawberry Commission, which is in the process of disbanding. In April, when it had four vacancies on its eight-member board, the commission asked the state Department of Agriculture for termination. During the last 15 years, the number of strawberry acres has dropped by half, from about 1,800 acres to about 900 acres. Of its 35 growers, two are in Eastern Washington, according to part-time manager Walter Swenson. The main one of those two is in Walla Walla."

Our local grocery store in PA has Washington Cherries for $1.98 lb. Our local cherries aren't in yet. Usually they sell for 99 cents a lb. I'm sure they will be higher this year. Everything else seems to be.

I was shocked went I went in my local store and they had 1 lb of store brand butter for $5.99. Ridiculous. I thought I read the sign wrong, but after a second look I didn't . That butter is going to sit for awhile. Another store had it for $3.33 lb. That is over a dollar more than the last time I bought it. Glad a have 5 lbs in the freezer.

"Still think "It'll be just a normal summer" as you said Elmer Fudd?"

Yes. You don't want to take Yes as an answer. You're quoting something I said in a thread on a completely different topic - how the drought may be expected to affect this year's summer in California. Drought years are normal, resulting water restrictions recur cyclically and regularly and in that sense it will be a normal summer.