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It's too darn hot

By TIMES EDITORIALS
Published July 19, 2006

You won't hear this often, but the residents of North Dakota dream of being in Florida (wait for the punch line) in July. Temperatures in the state synonymous with blizzards reached triple digits recently, while the Tampa Bay area was a good 10 to 15 degrees cooler.

Nearly every state has been registering daily highs in at least the 90s, and according to the St. Petersburg Times Tuesday weather forecast for 83 U.S. cities, 15 of them were expecting to hit 100. Weather map artists need only three colors these days, shades of red to portray hot, hotter and hottest.

Unexpected heat waves can be lethal, as this one has been. Several deaths have already been attributed to the rising thermometer. In Illinois, 130 air-conditioned office buildings had to be opened as public refuges. Even a train derailment in Oklahoma was blamed on high temperatures. In the West, the threat came from wildfires, stoked by drought and hot winds.

Although we are used to sweating out summers, Floridians can commiserate. Our hurricane season is about to get serious and soon all weather eyes could be on us. We know better than to be lulled by a slow start this year, with only two named storms so far (Beryl, the second, formed Tuesday in the Atlantic off North Carolina).

If there is any lesson to draw from all of this - other than fueling the global warming debate - it is that weather extremes are a unifying concern for Americans. Whether it be flooding in the Northeast, tornadoes in the Midwest, fires in the far West or high winds in our neck of the woods, we're in this together. Everyone's turn to suffer and to help out a suffering neighbor will come.

[Last modified July 19, 2006, 01:17:02]