New scorching heat wave building across Western U.S.

washingtonpost.com

32 points·vegetablepotpie··5 comments

Some temperatures mentioned in the article:

100°F = 37.78°C (various mentions. This is body temperature so you can not loose heat effectively in this air temperature.)

110°F = 43.33°C ("many valley communities" low prediction)

115°F = 46.11°C ("many valley communities" high prediction)

117°F = 47.22°C (Nevada weekend peak prediction)

130°F = 54.44°C (death valley prediction, meat can be cooked sous-vide at this point)

Usual summer temperatures in northern/western Europe:

30°C = 86°F (heatwave)

25°C = 77°F (hot weather)

20°C = 68°F (nice summer weather)

> 100°F = 37.78°C (various mentions. This is body temperature so you can not loose heat effectively in this air temperature.)

I think this isn’t quite true due to water’s large enthalpy of vaporization. In dry air the limits are gonna be much higher. Somebody’s probably done the math.

fair point, I suppose humidity and clothing is also a factor.

Vary much so. With dry air, and sufficient water, humans can survive very high temperatures (including 100C! [0]). However in 100% humidity (where sweating doesn’t work), 32C is the maximum we can survive [1].

[0] https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/experiments-and-ob...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

https://archive.is/oTSZb

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