A Record Summer For Phoenix, Arizona

From Amanda Lee Myers of the Associated Press:

PHOENIX, Ariz. — It ain't just hot in Phoenix these days. The heat is shoe-melting, spirit-crushing and now, record-breaking. Phoenix hit its 29th day of 110 degree-plus temperatures on Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service.

The average number of days that top 110 degrees in a given year is 10. The record of 28 days of 110 degrees or above occurred in 1979 and was tied in 2002, according to the weather service.

With withering temperatures like these, all jokes about dry heat stop being funny.

Phoenix resident Ollie Lewis sure isn't laughing. "It's a dry heat because we're in a desert!'' she said as she walked to a bus stop in downtown Phoenix.

Austin Jamison, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Phoenix, said an oven produces dry heat, too. "You can put your head in the oven, but that's not comfortable.''

Jamison said the temperature hit 113 degrees Wednesday afternoon and could climb higher. The hottest day of the year was July 4, when the mercury hit 116 degrees.

"We've never had this many days of 110 or better,'' he said. "So that right there should tell you it's pretty rare.''

The National Weather Service says urbanization and global climate change could be contributing factors to the heat.

Martin Milner, a construction worker who was taking a break from the scorching weather under a rare shade tree, said even though he's lived in Phoenix all his life, the heat never gets any easier to bear.

"People say you'll get used to it, but you never get used to it,'' said Milner, who wore a bandanna under his black hard hat to stop the sweat from running down his face. "Every year it gets harder and harder and harder. This year it's just skyrocketed.''

Marcia Reid, who moved to Phoenix from New York City five months ago, said the heat doesn't bother her.

"I lived in New York for so long, I got tired of the cold.'' she said. "I like it here. It's a dry heat.''

The weather service is forecasting temperatures of 105 degrees for the rest of the week.

I live about 60 miles south of Phoenix in the Sonora Desert. It has, indeed, been a long, hot summer.

And thank God for air conditioning. I don't know how people lived out here before it was introduced.