Saturday’s temperature had triggered an excessive heat warning across Arizona as lows were expected to range between 80F and 86F
On Saturday afternoon, the National Weather Service announced that the temperature at Phoenix Sky Harbor international airport reached 110F, making it the 54th day this year with temperatures of at least 110F.
Saturday’s temperature breaks the previous record of 53 days that was set in 2020. From 1991 to 2020, the average consecutive days of 110F or above is 21 days, the NWS said.
An excessive heat warning has been issued for south central and south-west Arizona until 8pm on Sunday as weekend highs are expected to range between 108F and 114F. Meanwhile, lows are expected to range between 80F to 86F.
I’m a fan of the metric system, but understand that Fahrenheit is pretty convenient for regular human temperatures. For one, the vast majority of climate temperatures that we experience in the US on a regular basis land between 0°F & 100°F except for deserts & recent climate change impacts. For another, Farenheit is a bit more precise as whole numbers since differences between degrees are smaller, so I can be more precise with my a/c thermostat.
Still, I would prefer that we change to metric across the board in the US because it is more congruent across dimensions and decimals are easier to manipulate than fractions for me. For the latter, if I had a recipe that required I calculate 1/3 cup plus 1/2 cup, I have to switch to 2/6 & 3/6, which equals 5/6, then I’m stuck estimating that anyway since most measuring cups aren’t labeled to the 6th precision. It gets even more confusing when we have to consider teaspoons, tablespoons, & pints. Using liters would be so much more convenient for me. Another area where I get confused is when measurements for food are presented as ounces versus fluid ounces. I understand the difference, but it’s still something I have to think extra about.
My one request in switching over to metric would be that weather and thermostat temperatures are presented at least to the .5°C precision level so that 75°F would be 24.0°C and 74°F would be 23.5°C. Yes, I’m this picky about my thermostat settings and can notice a difference between 75°F/24.0°C and 74°F/23.5°C.
Request granted! My European thermostat that is about 30 years old now, has a display accuracy of 0.5 degrees, so I’d expect more modern systems to be at least as accurate. I’m not going to speak of the actual accuracy, but the display at least is 0.5 🙂