It's not Arizona, but after a moderate first half of summer here the southwestern sirocco has blown this way. 102 F is 39 C. This sign is on a bank and I assure you that nobody was walking up. This is America. We drive.
The hottest I remember in my years here is 106 F / 41 C. It sticks in my memory because a few people in my office had hired a teacher from the Alliance Francaise for weekly lessons. Her mother back home saw the reports on the news and called to ask if people were dying in the streets. Of course, that was before the same kind of thing started happening in France.
What causes infrared radiation? Heat, the same stuff the new Webb Space Telescope registers. Some of us photography nuts get an old camera body modified with an infrared sensor and go out to do our own research on what the eye cannot see.
Saturday was tied for the hottest of recent days (Sunday got to 104 F / 40 C, too). I went out driving around, leaving the car as little as possible, to see what I could capture. Green foliage reflects infrared like crazy and looks white in a photo. There are a couple of specific Photoshop techniques to adjust the other colors. This is the pagoda on an island in Forest Park. More to come.
And St. Louis golfers go out in the mid-day sun. About 2 PM yesterday afternoon in Forest Park with a view of my car dashboard while parked under a tree nearby. 104 F = 40 C.
Citygarden, downtown St. Louis. The forecast for today, Saturday, is for a high of 104 F / 40 C. It's the kind of day when I want to take climate science deniers or the-economy-is-more-important types by the shoulders and just throttle them. Unlike many of our European friends, most of us have air conditioning and can hide indoors. But then there are the people who work outdoors and our neighbors who can't afford the electricity to run AC.
Still hot here, although some rain today may give us a break. It seems like I'm out on the streets with a camera less since I retired and don't go downtown every day. For now, an old picture of summer in The Lou, chilling out in Citygarden.
One of the nice things about this town is that we have a permanent big top tent. Its main purpose is the home of our resident circus company but other events take place there. Our summer opera company is putting on a burst of performance there this weekend. Difficult circumstances but better than sitting idle for another year.
We went to a matinee performance of The Tales of Hoffman yesterday. The tent is open-sided but not air conditioned and has no interior fans. It was 90 F / 32 C. The two male leads were, um, portly and portlier, wearing three piece suits. (The reed-thin soprano, who was fabulous, calls herself Brooklyn Snow, which I don't believe for a minute.) The whole company did a heroic job. (I started swooning in the third act.) However, we have tickets this afternoon for a performance of The Barber of Seville and the forecast is for 97 F / 36 C. We wonder if it will be canceled. If it's not, we wonder whether we will make it past intermission. We wonder if Almaviva will suffer heat stroke on stage.
Back to sunflowers tomorrow.
Summer doesn't officially start until tomorrow, June 20, but much of the U.S. is under a dome of high-pressure, hot air that has us cooking. This photo was taken downtown yesterday afternoon. 100 F is about 38 C. I think it was 119 F / 48 C in Phoenix on Thursday. Most - but not all - of us have air conditioning, but then think of our substantial homeless population. There are cooling shelters here but it's not unusual to hear of low income elderly people dying in their roasting apartments.
I'm sure we will revisit this in a month. Maybe less.
A member of the East St. Louis High School band plays on the grounds of the new overlook opposite the Arch. The photo was edited to emphasize the heat. It sure has been hot and very humid here. Welcome to summer in The Lou. Come Monday we'll be somewhere cooler, more about which soon.
