Yeah, but it's a dry heat!

Arizona Wind

As an Arizonan, how many times have you heard this?  How many times have you said this?  Where today was the hottest day of the year thus far at 108,  I thought it only appropriate to post about the heat.

In 1998 I came to the Valley of The Sun in search of a possible change of life.  I arrived in early June and did not expect what awaited me; the Arizona heat!  The sun here feels as if it is shining 10 feet above one's head.  It is practically tangible and has a life of it's own.  Before moving here in 2001, I saw an ad that pictured a woman wearing oven mitts on her hands while driving her car.  How odd, I thought.  Surely it can't get that hot.  It can and it does!  Suddenly wearing oven mitts on ones hands while driving does not seem like a bad idea! 

In 1997 Sky Harbor airport actually closed down due to the temps topping a whopping 122 degrees!  This was not due to the tires of the planes melting on the tarmac, as some believe, but rather due to the air being so thin that the planes could not take off.  That day has gone down in history as the hottest day in Phoenix.  Ask anyone in the city and they will all tell you.  Most will even recite what they were doing that day.

Friends back east have asked me to describe to them what the heat feels like.  Here are my best descriptions for them:

1.) Turn the oven on broil.

2.) Wait approximately 10 to 15 minutes.

3.) Open oven door and lean face close to opening (but not too close!)  Feel that heat wafting out, drying out your eyeballs and stinging your cheeks?  Yes, ladies & gentleman, that is what we experience every summer.  --And just for the record, I wouldn't have it any other way.  (Ask me again in September.  You might just get a different answer).

In July the monsoon storms arrive.  For that authentic Arizona desert experience, repeat steps one through three, and then have someone toss some sand in your face...hard!

Riding in the car on a hot summer day with the window open is like having a hair dryer on high blowing searing heat in your face.  Sunglasses help.  Not only will they protect you from the glare of the sun as it stares down at you mockingly from the crystal blue cloudless sky, it also works to prevent your eyeballs from shriveling up out of your head.  Nobody likes a shrivelled eye ball.  Admit it.

The Tabasco Hot Sauce company had a commercial years ago that described it's sauce as "hotter than Phoenix in August."  That's when you know it's hot. 

It took awhile for my body to adjust but it did happen.  80 degrees where I grew up in Boston was a virtual heat wave.  Here in Phoenix, at 80 degrees I am still wearing a sweater.  60 degrees is just too darn cold, and back in Boston folks have the tops on their convertibles down, and have broken out their shorts and t-shirts.  My family will call in July to let me know how they are suffering back east in the 90 degree temps.  Oh cry me a river!  --Amateurs.

The heat is treated in Arizona like a separate entity, like someone would talk about an old relative that has returned to town for the summer.  By Fall this house guest has overstayed it's welcome and folks are happy to see it go.  Love it or hate it, it's one of those things we have all learned to live with and accept as part of life in the desert.  It is one of those many things that make up the Arizona lifestyle.  Over snow and scraping windshields in the winter I'd take the heat any day.  I'd rather fry in the heat than freeze in the snow.  It's a small price to pay for glorious weather the rest of the year. 

And oh, by the way, speaking of the heat, did I mention it was a dry heat?