Summer Heat

When did the heat index become so important? When I was a kid, the weather people in Houston had just started talking about the “wind chill factor”. Which, of course I interpreted as “windshield factory”. We have a windshield factory? Where is it? And why is it important for me to know how cold it is there…

“…and it’s 43 degrees in Galveston now, 37 at the windshield factory…”
Who cares? Nobody I know works there!

So now why are they compelled to tell us how hot it “feels”? When I was a kid, when it was 96, it FELT like it was 96! When it was 104, it felt like 104. Some engineers with nothing else to do sat down and made a scale based on temperature, humidity and gullibility and published this thing. Now all the meteorologists and news people parrot it every time the temperature edges up past 90.

“it’s going to be 96 today, but with the heat index it will FEEL like 103…”

Just because we spend most of our lives in refrigerated air, it feels hotter than it really is, and now this “heat index” is giving credibility to all the ninnies who grew up somewhere north or else are addicted to Freon 22.

So, how hot does it feel when it’s 103? Oh, it feels like 112. Well how hot does 112 feel? Like 119. So what does 119 feel like? Well, you couldn’t stand it, it’s like the Sahara and nobody can survive that!

"Locally, nine people are reported to have died due to the heat."

But I don't know if that's taking into account the heat index. Could the actual total be closer to four?