Iranian City Soars To Record 129F Degrees: Near Hottest On Earth in Modern Measurements (washingtonpost.com)

A city in southwest Iran posted the country's hottest temperature ever recorded Thursday afternoon, and may have tied the world record for the most extreme high temperature. From a report on The Washington Post: Etienne Kapikian, a forecaster at French meteorological agency MeteoFrance, posted to Twitter that the city of Ahvaz soared to "53.7C" (128.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Kapikian said the temperature is a "new absolute national record of reliable Iranian heat" (alternative, non-paywalled source) and that it was the hottest temperature ever recorded in June over mainland Asia. Iran's previous hottest temperature was 127.4. Weather Underground's website indicates the temperature in Ahvaz climbed even higher, hitting 129.2 degrees at both 4:51 and 5 p.m. local time. If that 129.2 degrees reading is accurate, it would arguably tie the hottest temperature ever measured on Earth in modern times.

Comments

Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

How long can a human survive in 53.7C?

Re:Survivability

[r1348]

How long can a human survive in a mild sauna?

Re:Survivability

[msauve]

Even worse, how long can they survive at 129C, as the headline says?

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, fair enough, I wasn't aware that saunas typically started at around 70C. So allow me to revise the question.

How long can a human perform actual physical work in 53.7C?

Re:Survivability

[Oswald McWeany]

That's pretty intense. Well above boiling point of water.

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

"How long can a human survive in -94.7C?"

It happened in August 2010 when it hit -94.7C (-135.8F). Then on 31 July of this year, it came close again: -92.9C (-135.3F).

Who gives a shit you people delight in seeing new high temps like some bonkers christian who cannot wait for the rapture.

Temperature records will always be broken we have not kept records for nearly long enough to know what happens in a 100,000-year climate pattern.

Re:Survivability

[Gay Boner Sex]

Former US Army private here. A LOT longer than you would think. Especially when you will be punished severely if you don't.

Re:Survivability

[grahamsz]

I've never been above about 115C and that was pretty brutal even for a couple of minutes

Re:Survivability

[LynnwoodRooster]

Thus proving that Iran truly is Hell...

Re:Survivability

[Geoffrey.landis]

Depends on the humidity.
You can survive well if you can sweat, but if humidity approaches 100%, you're dead.

Re:Survivability

[PopeRatzo]

How long can a human survive in a mild sauna?

Maybe a few days if they're on intravenous liquids.

Re:Survivability

[MouseR]

We've not been here long enough but the ice shelf and fauna has. Derp. There are many ways to correlate these fossil records to climate.

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

you would be probably dead at 115C after a couple minutes. You might survive for a couple seconds with terrible burns unless you are made of glass or steel :/

Re:Survivability

[msauve]

To those mod'ing my comment "troll," you're late to the game. The editors fixed it. Unlike us proles, /. editors have the opportunity to edit their errors.

Re: Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes "derp". And it used to be much colder too. Read a book. The Great Lakes in the USA were dredged by massive glaciers that melted to fill them. We may have hit a natural tipping point where that melting is speeding up... much like compounding interest. Interesting to study, but insinuating that the Earth has never seen such extremes is just plain wrong. We may like things as they are, but we may need to adapt.

Re:Survivability

[Pax681]

Even worse, how long can they survive at 129C, as the headline says?

why is he modded troll? from the RSS feed the headlinbe does indeed come up with 129C!

Iranian City Soars To Record 129C Degrees: Near Hottest On Earth in Modern Measurements

pic or it didn't happen? ok then!

Re: Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

Need a pic of the instrument location.

Probably on a rooftop in the middle of the city next to an AC condenser.

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans have this thing called adaptability.
So long as they have water near them and consume it properly, and properly eat to compensate for the loss of energy,
they can do whole military training programs every day at even 60C until the point their bodies have reconfigured themselves
to function no worse at those temperatures than normal people at around 20C. Doesn't matter how weak they started out,
barring a few exceptional cases like asthma for instance, even the weakest twig-like physical equivalent of trash will adapt
and become tougher.

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-10912578

I spend a lot more than 5 or 6 minutes in 80C, usually it's closer to 90C anyway.

Re:Survivability

[s_p_oneil]

Direct observation/measurement isn't the only method to estimate global temperatures over long periods of time. This chart isn't scientific, and the vast majority of the line is dashed to show the temperature is estimated (not observed directly), but a picture is worth 1000 words:

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wi...
(On the plus side, we seem to be preventing the next ice age from coming along.)

You could argue that direct observation is the only way to be certain, but that's like arguing that there's no way to be certain that trees existed before mankind showed up to observe and document them. You could take it one step farther and argue that even after humans developed written language, they were probably lying (en masse), in much the same way you believe that 98% of the scientists studying climate are lying. Any fossils found were faked or planted there by God to test the faithless (because he's definitely that petty/vindictive).

Re:Survivability

[ZorinLynx]

Isn't there a point though, where the body can't get rid of heat fast enough and your body temperature starts to rise, causing hyperthermia and heat stroke?

The laws of physics say that if it's 129F and your body temperature is 98.6F, the heat transfer will be INTO your body. At what point is evaporative cooling via sweat no longer enough? There is a physical limit; there has to be.

Re:Survivability

[rnturn]

Huh?

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

When record highs are broken this frequently, and I'm not just talking the global high but local/regional high temperatures, it makes one wonder what the hell is going on.

I guess you're one of those "stick your head in the sand" types. Ignoring a problem always makes it go away, right?

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

Continuing...
But i do understand that humid outside is not a sauna.

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL really my point still stands we do not know, you saying we have not been here long enough wow really staggering.
Point was only new record highs make the news and and death cult members get off on this info.
If only both sides where supported by the billions America throws at weather science but that would not fit the narrative back by people who want to destroy the west and push a 1 world government.

Re:Survivability

[grahamsz]

No, i have genuinely been in a sauna around that temperature. That's certainly on the hot side and it hurt to take deep breaths but it's far from lethal.

I've routinely been in saunas around 100C and find that quite pleasant as long as i can get out and take a cold shower or jump in a lake.

Still i wouldn't want the outside to be that hot, that'd be very very unpleasant.

Re:Survivability

[rickb928]

Suffering from chronic mild asthma, I can share with you that my asthma will kick in when I stop work. Exercise-induced bronchospasm. Even when I've trained to do the work.

I'll hit the inhaler then. Another reason I am not a Marine.

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

Punished severely if you don't survive? If I'm dead I don't care...because I can't

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the joke - they said 129C, not F.

That's 129 Celsius, or about 260F.

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone with your name was in the US Army? Did you join just because you thought there would be a lot of situations where you were forced into close quarters with the object of your perversion?

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

>I've routinely been in saunas around 100C

Nope. You'd be dead.

Re:Survivability

[Bing Tsher E]

Then the law of physics must make it impossible for refrigerators to work, because they usually exist within environments where the temperature inside is reduced due to a mechanism that transfers the heat to outside the refrigerator. The human body obviously doesn't by necessity use the same mechanism of heat transfer as a refrigerator, but come on, you were talking about general rules governing over all laws of physics.

Re:Survivability

[omnichad]

Refrigerators work by compressing refrigerant to the point where it's hotter than ambient air, at which point it cools off. The human body has nothing like this, so your point is not very useful.

Re:Survivability

[theendlessnow]

Humans? At 53.7C? Not good for very long.

This is why we only hire sub-humans to work the hot aisle of our datacenter.

Re:Survivability

[Jfetjunky]

That is not only not right, it is not even wrong.

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

Tied for the record? Guiness book pegs the record at 134 degrees.

Re:Survivability

[grahamsz]

I'm not sure why i'm even bothering to respond.

It's right there on Wikpedia that Finnish sauna temperatures sometimes exceed 110C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Survivability

[aaarrrgggh]

Your body releases sensible, latent, and radiant heat. When the outside (dry bulb) temperature exceeds your body temperature, you are not able to transfer any heat via sensible means. This leaves perspiration and hopefully cool surrounding surfaces. Since the latter isn't going to happen you are 100% reliant on perspiration. Once the wet bulb exceeds your body temperature too then you are stuck and you are in extreme danger of heat stroke.

130F in the sun even with 0% humidity isn't really viable without heat stroke.

In this case, the dewpoint was around 5F; wouldn't want to be there for long.

Re:Survivability

[grahamsz]

Sure, but you can survive that for a short period of time likely. If i can survive a minute or two at 115 and have no ill effects.

The BBC quotes some Finnish Sauna Society person saying that even up to 160C is "enjoyable" for some individuals, although i'm fairly skeptical of that claim

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...

Re: Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

So you went in a private, and 4 years later came out a private?

That tells me you don't know how to follow orders. So you never had any responsibility.

Re:Survivability

[luis_a_espinal]

Isn't there a point though, where the body can't get rid of heat fast enough and your body temperature starts to rise, causing hyperthermia and heat stroke?

The laws of physics say that if it's 129F and your body temperature is 98.6F, the heat transfer will be INTO your body. At what point is evaporative cooling via sweat no longer enough? There is a physical limit; there has to be.

Assume one were to get to one point, consider that many areas of the world have been very hot for ages... and obviously w/o air conditioning.

Back then, people would not go out between noon and, say, 4. You would get up very early to work, go to a siesta and resume work in the afternoon. It wasn't that long ago that people back in my country of origin would wake up before 4 to go to the fields with lanterns, be back by 11 with milk and produce, take a nap and wait till 4 to resume work.

Desert dwellers would travel at night, and so on. Adaptability is not just limited to the physical. It covers the behavioral and social.

Re:Survivability

[luis_a_espinal]

Isn't there a point though, where the body can't get rid of heat fast enough and your body temperature starts to rise, causing hyperthermia and heat stroke?

The laws of physics say that if it's 129F and your body temperature is 98.6F, the heat transfer will be INTO your body. At what point is evaporative cooling via sweat no longer enough? There is a physical limit; there has to be.

Human bodies cool off via evaporation of sweat. The outside temperature might measure at 129F, but as you sweat, it evaporates, dissipating heat off your body. As long as you are hydrated, this will work. Outside temperature would have to be a lot hotter than that to stop your body from cooling, hot enough for you to cook maybe.

Re: Survivability

[athmanb]

It can coat itself in water which then evaporates and carries off heat.

Re:Survivability

[burtosis]

Spot on. Your body sweats to get rid of heat which dosent work well at all in high humidity. Under 25% humidity the dew point is around 90F while at 90% it's 125F for a 139F temp. Basically your survival time is going to be going to be under 30 minutes at high humidity 90%+ and 129F. Luckily the heat was accompanied by low humidity in the case above, or there would be mass casualties.

Strangely enough the humidity may drastically increase in North Africa and the Middle East

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

He may be gay, but you're the only faggot here.

Re: Survivability

[Miamicanes]

Unless the relative humidity is 99%. Then you just stew in your own broth. 118 degrees of breezy, dry, desert heat feels like a bad 80-degree day in Miami. If it ever got to 120 degrees in Miami, people stuck outdoors would start to literally drop dead from heat.

Re: Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

spoken like a true trumphump.

Re:Survivability

[jbengt]

At what point is evaporative cooling via sweat no longer enough?

At the point the Wet Bulb temperature approaches 98.6F.

Re:Survivability

[Darinbob]

True, but that's extreme, even for sauna lovers. I think 80-90C is more typical. I was only in one once that was heated properly to Finnish temperatures. I never got up to the highest bench, it was too brutal up there.

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

Check the top right corner of the graph, where it says it has "Marcott et.al 2013" as source.

Now read Marcott et.al. The abstract is enough.

Now check the graph again. Take all the time you need.

The next question you might want to ask yourself is: Now that you know that Randall is lying, will you keep posting that graph?

Re:Survivability

[angel'o'sphere]

Hell is actually derived from hel, an old germanic/norse word. Basically indeed meaning "Hell", but hel is icy cold, not hot :D

Just nitpicking a bit ...

Re:Survivability

[angel'o'sphere]

You are an idiot.

Re:Survivability

[angel'o'sphere]

I never was above 120C ... 160C sounds indeed extreme.
But the main problem in a finish Sauna is not the temperature but the amount of Vodka you are supposed to drink while in it.

Well, german Saunas, that label themselves Finnish are usually capped at 110C.

Never managed more than 30 minutes in one, climbing down a row every 10 minutes (usually they have 3 rows/ranks, I sit 5 mins on the low one, then lie on the high one, then move down ... depending on my stamina)

Re:Survivability

[Hognoxious]

as you sweat, it evaporates, dissipating heat off your body. As long as you are hydrated, this will work.

You're missing one important factor: the humidity of the air. The higher it is, the less effective sweating is at cooling you. When it reaches 100% sweating doesn't do anything at all.

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's a dry heat...?

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

So true!

Re:Survivability

[Darinbob]

I wouldn't recommend the drinking before the sauna, it can relax you too much and it's a diuretic so you would dehydrate faster. Similar reasons why you don't drink before getting in the hot tub.

Re:Survivability

[Bartles]

Over time your body will adapt and adjust it's metabolism, requiring less fuel, and generating less heat as a byproduct of metabolic processes.

Re:Survivability

[Bartles]

The body burns enough fuel to keep itself at 98.6F. If ambient temperatures are continuously above that, it will adjust it's metabolism to regulate temperature.

Re:Survivability

[angel'o'sphere]

Of course.
Nevertheless everyone is doing it.

I actually drink either red wine or cold beer when siting in the hot tub. But I go to public Saunas, so we don't drink there :D Here in Germany not many people have a private Sauna. However when I was young the Sauna parties where ugly drinking parties, too.

Re:Survivability

[Megol]

The mechanism an ordinary refrigerator use is that compression increases heat and decompression decreases heat. So we have a gas at temperature x, compress it using a compressor which means we have a gas under pressure with a temperature y (y being greater than x). We then cool that gas in a heat exchanger (normally cooled using ambient air) resulting in a pressurized gas with a temperature lower than y. Finally the gas is decompressed via a valve which results in a lower pressure gas with considerably lower temperature, this gas then cools whatever is to be cooled before returning to the start of the cycle.

The poster you responded to is correct in that heat only flows from high to low and if the evaporative cooling of the body (a very efficient process BTW) fails for some reason _or_ if the external temperature is too high, the external humidity is to much for sweat to evaporate* or a lot of other cases then the body will be overheated and one will die. It isn't unusual.

(* so how do people survive saunas? Time is also a factor and some people do actually die from using them)

Re:Survivability

[Megol]

The body can adjust, sure. But what you claim isn't possible - the body can burn more fuel to increase body temperature if it's cold and after some temperatures one will begin to shake/shiver as the body tries to increase heat by working the muscles and if that doesn't help blood flow to extremities will be decreased in order to preserve the core temperature as long as possible. That is possible.
But the body have no internal mechanism for cooling. Decreasing metabolism just means that the body produces less heat, it doesn't regulate the external temperature. The only way for a human to cool in an environment hotter than the body want to be is using heat exchange with the surrounding world, radiation and conductive transfer are generally not too useful (radiation is very inefficient at body temperatures, conductive: external objects tend to be hotter than the body) which leaves the evaporative cooling by secreting sweat and allow it to evaporate.

Re:Survivability

[behrooz0az]

The city is dry. it was heaven 20 years ago now looks like old western movies.

Re:Survivability

[bongey]

Human body can endure more than you think. Considering I was in full body armor, long sleeves in pulling guard duty for up to 8 hours with nothing but water in Jacobadad,Pakistan (dailies summers >120, record 127, easily 130+ on tarmac, 150+ behind a c-130). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Survivability

[bongey]

I spent full body armor, long sleeves , 8+ hours , pull guard duty in Jacobabad Pakistan, 120+ in the summer,record there is 127. Even hotter when you were right next to tarmac. Heat was least of our concern, a Cobra crawling in your fox hole and biting you was far more of a worrier, which happened to one of us.Good thing we had Atropine auto-injectors on us,it saved his life. No one forgot to have auto-injector on them after that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Survivability

[bongey]

Utter fucking bullshit, please just shut up when you don't know what you are talking about. Spent 6 months in Jacobabad Pakistan, 8+ hours in full combat gear(120+, record 127). Directly next to the tarmac was 130+ almost ever single day,150+ if a c-130 was running and you were unlucky one who's fox hole was right behind it. Not a single person ever passed out from the heat.

Re: Survivability

[Bartles]

If the heat output of the body decreases, then it's easier for evaporative cooling to maintain 98.6F.

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

"sauna" is a Finnish word, which involves heat and water.
"Mild sauna" is not a workable concept, as the Iranian air likely has very little humidity.
If water was involved the temps would be lower, converted to latent heat.

Re: Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also possible he rose to a significantly higher rank, but was busted down to private before being discharged, or perhaps served very briefly before sustaining a service ending injury, or some other reason. Source: former Navy Petty Officer. -PCP

Re: Survivability

[dougdonovan]

134.1 degrees, death valley, ca. just sticking with the issue.

Re:Survivability

[LynnwoodRooster]

So's a freaking oven!

Re:Survivability

[xfade551]

Also former Army here, and I have been to "the sandbox". If you keep drinking water so you keep sweating, you can take it longer than you think. You also need to balance your electrolyte intake, since sweat is pretty salty. By experience around 3 parts plain water to 1 part (pre-mixed) Gatorade/Poweraid seems to work okay. You can keep moving, just not very quickly for very long. Think 5-10 minutes of work, then 10-20 minutes of break.

In places like the Middle East or Central Asia, you regularly get subjected to working temperatures higher than this record. For weather stations to measure "official" temperatures, they are not permitted to be ground coverings like sand or asphalt underneath the thermometer... but if you're working someplace where it's raw, sandy desert with no vegetation and no shade... yeah, it gets a hell of a lot hotter than this "record temperature".

Re: Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

Likely to be false: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/10/25/new-analysis-shreds-claim-that-death-valley-recorded-earths-hottest-temperature-in-1913/

Re: Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

Talk to me when you're sixty or seventy or have frail health, tough guy.

Re: Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

Even on the Las Vegas strip it can get warmer than that record.

Re: Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, you've posted this three times

Re: Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

It happens to a lot of heroes: punching an officer who orders you to murder civilians, beating up the Sergeant who bullied your buddy into suicide, leaking military videos of atrocities to the press.

Re: Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't you just stay at home and beat yourself with a stick instead?

Re:Survivability

[RockDoctor]

You can survive well if you can sweat, but if humidity approaches 100%, you're dead.

If you'd been on the Gulf coast (Persian, not the one around Cuba) when the tail end of the monsoon swept in and took the humidity from the low 20s to the high 40s over a matter of hours, you'd know this from personal experience.

Re:Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

How many hours did you stay in the sauna and how much walking / carrying did you do?
Best guess?
Zero.
129 is not survivable
Ask AF Survival school

Re: Survivability

[AutodidactLabrat]

Yes, and look how many long term survivors there are in DEATH valley
No, 129 is not survivable.
Troops in Iraq benefit from very, VERY low humidity
Now watch what happens over the next 10 years.

Re: Survivability

[AutodidactLabrat]

Actually, after RH 60% the human body model overheats and dies at 92 F.

Re: Survivability

[AutodidactLabrat]

Derp to you coward. HOW MANY HUMAN INHABITANTS of the Great Lakes during the Wurm Glaciation?
That would be Zero.
And not for lack of trying
So now we have ignorant liars claiming there is no human action involved with lethal high temperatures.
They lie.

Re: Survivability

[Anonymous Coward]

... Being busted down voluntarily to capture a brain bug on planet P

Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who writes temperatures as "129 degrees"? This is a science and tech site, at very least, if you're going to use outmoded, outdated, antiquated, anachronistic, non-standard, and mostly unused units of measurement, indicate the unit.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[omnichad]

Context. If you're intelligent you can figure out the unit without wasting headline space.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate it when people need everything spelled out

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/129th_meridian_east

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[91degrees]

That would be 326.9 Kelvin :)

It does seem bizarre to talk about "modern measurements" and use outdated units for those measurements.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Covered many times before, but I still think Fahrenheit is the best unit for weather temperature.

0f to 100f is livable.

0c to 100c is not livable.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[DontBeAMoran]

If you're intelligent you use metric like the rest of the damn planet.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Opportunist]

Maybe not livable, but get a glass of water and as long as it's liquid, you're somewhere between 0 and 100 degrees.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[i_ate_god]

my glass of water has some salt in it and it's -2c...

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[omnichad]

That's a map of mostly where Slashdot is hosted. What a shock.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Woah, good thing you spoke up fellow AC. I assumed 129 degrees meant it was 264F in Iran. Silly me.

Re: Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

My glass it's boiling. Also I'm in space

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL...since your comment it appears they did "fix it", and added Celsius unit...So at this time the headline states:

Iranian City Soars To Record 129C Degrees: Near Hottest On Earth in Modern Measurements

Reports incoming of water just boiling away and people turning into desiccated corpses after a couple hours! lololol

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[ooloorie]

If you're intelligent, you don't give a f*ck.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Oswald McWeany]

Covered many times before, but I still think Fahrenheit is the best unit for weather temperature.

0f to 100f is livable.

0c to 100c is not livable.

Who cares if it is "livable"?

It regularly gets 110F here in summer and people still live. In Canada it often gets below 0F and people live.

The measurements 0F to 100F were based upon what at the time were perceived as the min and max temperatures the weather reached in Europe. That's not very scientific, even if it is meaningful.

You can perceive the difference just about in 1C change. You can't perceive the difference in 1F change. A Centigrade is more meaningful to a human being as far as perception goes.

Overall though... who really cares? If talking about the weather, either system works as long as you are familiar with it.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Oswald McWeany]

my glass of water has some salt in it and it's -2c...

I wouldn't recommend drinking that.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spelling words out instead of using symbols is a generally accepted journalism practice. If this headline were pulled from a newspaper or from a website hosted by a newspaper, that would explain it.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

So a European meteorologist reports on a temperature in Iran, which is then posted on an international site dedicated to science and technology.

At which point does F become part of the context? Oh right, lazy idiotic slashdot editors, perhaps you have a point...

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[ooloorie]

We prefer not being like the rest of the planet, thank you very much.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[msauve]

Who writes temperatures as "129 degrees"?

Anyone who correctly follows the official BIPM guidelines. The unit is "degrees Celsius," not Celsius. If symbols are used, then (/. still doesn't handle Unicode) "[degree symbol]C".

Re: Past the boiling point of water?

[AvitarX]

I thought it was the coldest thing he could make (alcohol mixed with ice) and his mouth.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Keick]

If you're intelligent you use metric like the rest of the damn planet.

Herd mentality more like it... but since we're using world maps to prove points:

If you want to live a long life, then forget metric as it obviously causes lower life expectancy.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[DontBeAMoran]

And all the people in metric countries also read and post on Slashdot, because Internet.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[avandesande]

Celsius is like having a amplifier with a volume nob that goes up to 5.5

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Luthair]

The title even says 129C Degrees which reinforces the measurement is in Celsius.

Re: Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

They broke it again by fixing it. Wrote C instead of F.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[omnichad]

The point is that the scale is more granular for indoor/outdoor temperatures while staying in integer units. For Celsius, you really have to go out to one decimal point to be very accurate with outdoor temperatures. In this case, it was Fahrenheit with an added decimal, because of the fact that it's a very specific record.

You say I can't perceive a 1 degree F change, but my thermostat moves in 1 degree increments and I do notice a difference based on the setting. And Celsius thermostats tend to all go in 0.5 degree increments.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Chris Mattern]

Yeah, but the headline gives the unit...and gets it wrong. "129C" it says. It's correct in the body, but still...

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[LynnwoodRooster]

If you're pedantic, you insist on metric. If you're intelligent, you can actually do unit conversions... I bet having to use pi to relate radius to area offends you as well, no?

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[PopeRatzo]

If you're intelligent you use metric like the rest of the damn planet.

Why do you hate America?

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[MachineShedFred]

They actually did (incorrectly) include the measurement in the headline - it says "129C degrees" - according to our esteemed Slashdot editors, any water in that city is boiling off right now.

Now that's climate change!

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Chris Mattern]

Who cares if it is "livable"?

Uh, people that have to live in it?

It regularly gets 110F here in summer and people still live. In Canada it often gets below 0F and people live.

But they generally don't live in those temperature. They have airconditioning or heating and try to avoid going out into those temps. It may be possible to survive in those temperatures, but it's not "liveable" in the sense that you're going to be very unhappy about it.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[omnichad]

Didn't see that. Which maybe explains how it's still there, but the original poster in this thread didn't seem to notice that part either - they even quoted it wrong.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[omnichad]

That's the same Internet that does unit conversions for you if you ask. Catering to the most local audience - where many of the ads are most relevant to - makes sense. Even most scientists in the US who use Celsius day in and day out still use Fahrenheit to describe ambient temperature.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Goaway]

You live in a temperature scale? That must be a very strange life.

Re: Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think msmash is a cron job.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares? Metric Nazis, that's who. They just can't stand that there are whole populations out there that don't measure stuff the way they do, and it MUST CHANGE because uniformity. These are the same people however that celebrate diversity!

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I thought the editorial standards around here had bottomed out and were starting to trend upwards. I guess not.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Wraithlyn]

Even better, when I clicked on the headline from my feed it said "129C".

Yes that's right, Iran was so hot today the water in everyone's bodies spontaneously boiled. Fucking editors on this site...

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Cajun Hell]

And if you're slightly more intelligent, you can guess the units from the context so you know when someone is using metric and when someone isn't.

I am personally so amazingly intelligent and my units inference algorithm is so reliable, that I even use it on all my Mars probes!

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[nnet]

+11

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[DontBeAMoran]

Until a few minutes ago, the head read "Iranian city soars to record 129C degrees". That doesn't help when the so-called editors are making up stuff as they go.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://i.imgur.com/czKwIP5.jpg

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://pics.me.me/how-to-get-fahrenheit-temps-think-of-it-as-a-23403582.png

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

The air must be quite thin up there on that high horse and is likely the source of the delusional fit. Apparently math is also hard up there.

Re: Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not?

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Europe it's common to live without a thermostat. Problem solved lol.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Celsius allows for hot or warm beverages, tea, other herbal infusions, boiled eggs, and CPU temperature.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not "livable" in 0F either without heating, so there goes that argument.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[CrashNBrn]

The Nest thermostat allows fractional (1/4, 1/3, and 1/2) F* temperature settings. You can easily feel the difference between 76.6 and 77.

Re: Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, you don't like being raped and murdered by dark brown people? Get with the times, xenophobe.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the rest of the universe would be offended if you think this planet is "intelligent".

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the congress should be able to do that; they just added another 4 zero's...

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're the kind of people that do not require information, if you're in an outside country do not ask durections or if you can't understand something do not ask clarification.... Isn't that the way of life the proud ignorant?

Re: Past the boiling point of water?

[Oswald McWeany]

I've heard several different "origin" stories. Another one I heard is that 100F was used because it was the body temperature of the horse (horses have more stable body temperatures than humans so he used horses rather than people).

The actual scale though has shifted from when the system was initially set up. 0F and 100F are not what they used to be. To "compete" with Celsius the scale shifted a little to make it so that water froze at 32F and boiled at 212F. Farenheit as a measurement hasn't always been the same.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're even more intelligent, you'll not care that some countries prefer different units of measure :-)

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[CrashNBrn]

...that goes up to -11.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Turns out thats also a map of where most of the worlds technology invention and innovation gets done.

You're welcome :-)

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Oswald McWeany]

It's not "livable" in 0F either without heating, so there goes that argument.

I would say 110F is more "livable" than 40F. 110F you need proper hydration. 40F you need heating and or warm clothes. 0 - 100 is not the "best temperatures for survival". 50F - 90F would probably be a better range for that.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

The majority of the population in the 75+ category on that map use Celcius.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[epine]

Yes that's right, Iran was so hot today the water in everyone's bodies spontaneously boiled.

A temperature of 129 C is reported on the earth's surface, and you're content to assume 101.3 kPA as opposed to, say, 101.3 MPA?

For 129 C at 1 kbar, water is liquid at any infernal temperature up to the critical point, though ammonia appears to remain liquid the smallest C-hair, having a critical point of 132.4 C at 112.8 MPA (by way of comparison, the MPAA rating system reeks of adult depends at every known temperature and pressure).

I wouldn't rule this possibility out, either. Planet earth was obviously struck by some very large object, a Vogon bagpipe sonata, or a Lister trick shot.
____

Rimmer: Eeeeeew, who just shat their pants?

Holly: Ahhhhh, how I love the smell of vindaloo in the morning.

Cat subtly glides away from Lister.

Lister: I was concentrating ... there was a lot at stake ... the pressure was immense ...

Cat [turning to Holly]: Hey, you can smell that?

Holly: Not exactly. It's as if a billion photons cried out in terror and suddenly scattered.

Lister: Only a billion?

Holly: Units, smunits.

Lister: Whew, that's a relief. I was beginning to think last night's curry was sub-standard.

Rimmer [Sinking to his knees, grasping at his neck as if being choked by an invisible hand]: Holly ... release ... the ... airlock ... NOW!

Holly: I'm sorry, Arnold, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Lister: Next time, I'll ask.

Holly: I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I still wouldn't be able to do that.

Lister: Mission accomplished.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks Bill Nye!

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Bing Tsher E]

That is not a glass of water. It's a saline solution.

Calling it a glass of water is the same thing as calling a glass of wine a glass of water.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Bing Tsher E]

Not for the same reasons you hate America, which I am certain you will delve into if given the opportunity.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[cascadingstylesheet]

Who writes temperatures as "129 degrees"? This is a science and tech site, at very least, if you're going to use outmoded, outdated, antiquated, anachronistic, non-standard, and mostly unused units of measurement, indicate the unit.

Ah, the virtue-signaling, it burns, lol

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[theendlessnow]

Who writes temperatures as "129 degrees"? This is a science and tech site, at very least, if you're going to use outmoded, outdated, antiquated, anachronistic, non-standard, and mostly unused units of measurement, indicate the unit.

I petitioned these folks for years on the very same matter. No luck.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[epine]

With apologies to Blaise PAscal.

Sometimes I notice a typo and I think about fixing it, and then I just go "nah, it fits well enough".

If you don't let your accidents pitch in, then you have to make everything up yourself.

Besides, I was busy. I couldn't off the top of my head recall Rimmer's given name. Pressing matters.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a science and tech site
 
Um, no, it's really not and hasn't been for many years. You don't come here for serious science discussions. This is more the MythBusters version of science here.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Chris Mattern]

I live in an ambient temperature. So do you, unless you've found a way to live in a vacuum.

Re: Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Capital letters, where the units are named after persons
f and c indicate illitaracy

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[chuckugly]

Celsius is a pretty poor system for expressing temperatures people experience. If you're going to get on a high horse, use Kelvin. At least it has a few viable claims.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[PJ6]

Who writes temperatures as "129 degrees"? This is a science and tech site ... [bellyaching]

Um, let's see here... how about... almost everyone in the US?

Just because a unit of measure is good for science doesn't necessarily mean it's good for every other use.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "livable temperatures" thing was dumb. 0 - 100 are *the most common* temperature ranges for "livable areas".

Yes, some places go lower and yes, some places go higher but large swaths of inhabitable land have temperatures that range between 0 - 100 throughout the year.

Areas that have below 0 as a regular occurrence are much less livable and areas that have over 100 as a regular occurrence are also less livable. Modern tech has changed this over time so our perspective has also changed. It is also easier, technologically, to survive in cold than heat. That is why, given 70 as "ideal" the scale drops less 70 but only plus 30. Fires and a coat are easier than insulation and air-conditioning.

Re: Past the boiling point of water?

[caseih]

You're correct that the scale has changed over time. But you could look up the facts on it. Even Wikipedia does a passing job of explaining it. It certainly was not changed to "compete" with celsius. Rather Fahrenheit multiplied his earlier scale by 4. This was likely because he had started working with mercury to make more accurate thermometers and mercury has the property that one degree F increase in temperature expands the density by one part in 1000. So it's more probable that the final scale ended up the way it is because of the properties of mercury, not because of Celsius.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, 0C to 100C is more or less the temperature range in which a human can spend some time naked. (Think of icebathing vs. saunas.)

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[cascadingstylesheet]

If you're intelligent you use metric like the rest of the damn planet.

Outside of a tiny virtue-signaling group, nobody in the US cares about this.

Nobody cared in the 1970s, when the same tiny group was virtue-signaling about it in exactly the same way, and nobody cares now.

Everyone uses and thinks in F for ambient temperature. If you need C for some specialty purpose, you use it. Nobody cares that it is different, or has any trouble switching between them.

If possible - which I'm not sure it is - we care even less now, because we all have pocket computers that instantly can do any conversions, if we ever need any. Which we don't, statistically speaking.

So if it's "intelligent" to get all worked up about a total nothing - well, whatever. Enjoy.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[aicrules]

same thing as calling a glass of wine a glass of water.

To certain Nazarenes those are the same thing.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[roman_mir]

0 is not livable??? Maybe the absolute 0 is not livable, but I routinely live in places that get below 0, significantly below 0.

Re: Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, we think its hilarious the US wastes billions of dollars because they got the unit conversion wrong, again. Don't ever change, that way we can carry on laughing at you.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[dindi]

I live in Central America. While most measurements are presented in metric, and interesting anomaly is the construction industry.

Not sure if it is the U.S. imports that caused this, or some other strangeness, but they want to measure short things in inches (pulgadas), while they would talk in meters on longer ones.

You can somehow get used to it, but the problem is, that sometimes they don't know what they are talking about. I went to a store and wanted to by a 40x40 cm concrete flooring "thing" (garden steps). The guy kept insisting it was a 15x15 what they had. So I asked him if it was cm he told me yes (not too convinced). I showed him the approximate size of a 15x15cm tile at which point he literally shook his had and left (I stood there wondering WTF just happened).

I had to ask an other person to actually walk out with me to their storage so I could verify what I was buying as no one knew what units the inventory used.....

Of course, moral of the story is that I am the asshole foreigner because I don't read their minds and always end up getting invoiced for something that then doesn't match because no one knows the difference between centimeters and inches....

OH, ... yep .. hectares, square meters, acres and "manzanas" (no, not apples) are an other interesting animal here. Though at least people usually know the units they are speaking in, so you can do your conversion without going nuts.

And don't even start me on pints, ounces, fluid ounces....

Re: Past the boiling point of water?

[oobayly]

Possibly, if it's an immediate change. However if you walk out of the room at 66.7 and 10 minutes later walk back in when it's 67, do you reckon you'll notice the difference? Did you get hit by a draft in the interim?

My living room has one radiator. I can guarantee that it varies be more than a fraction of a Fahrenheit, so a thermostat that is that precise is pointless.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're intelligent you use metric like the rest of the damn planet.

Why do you hate America?

DontBeAMoran is clearly racist and is a white, European ethnocultural supremacist.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who writes temperatures as "129 degrees"? This is a science and tech site, at very least, if you're going to use outmoded, outdated, antiquated, anachronistic, non-standard, and mostly unused units of measurement, indicate the unit.

Unused? You toolbox ... what language are you writing in ? Oh US English? Oh ok ..thought so.
Guess what unit of measurement we use here in the greatest nation on earth , oh yes .. Fucking Fahrenheit. -> F -
Stop being such a little CUCK. you KNOW exactly what unit it was supposed to be. You just wanted to make a big Fing deal about it.
jackass.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[sexconker]

Oh, you're trying to be pedantic? You've failed.

You can only call it a "glass of water" if it's made of water.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[PopeRatzo]

Not for the same reasons you hate America, which I am certain you will delve into if given the opportunity.

I love this country enough to have served it. You?

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[angel'o'sphere]

Celsius is actually perfect. Water freezes at 0, it boils at 100, body temperature is 37 and comfortable temperature in a shirt is probably 28. Good temperature for a sleeping room is 18. As easy to learn as you Fahrenheit equivalents ....

You are just not used to it :D

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[david_thornley]

Yeah. A geek site should list it as 327 kelvins.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[jwdb]

Celsius is like having a amplifier with a volume nob that goes up to 5.5

True, in some ways. However, I'll raise you that the knob on a Fahrenheit amp only goes down to 3.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[angel'o'sphere]

The measurements 0F to 100F were based upon what at the time were perceived as the min and max temperatures the weather reached in Europe.
No it was not.
0F is the coldest you can get a ice / water mixture with salt dissolved in it.
100F is the human body temperature.

Both have nothing to do with any weather in Europe (in winter in the north it is colder, in summer in the south it is hotter, in both cases: by far)

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[david_thornley]

0F? I've been told that more people die from the cold when it's in the forties (Fahrenheit) than when it's around zero. 40F seems deceptively safe until the hypothermia kicks in. (Actually, after that it feels even safer, but isn't.)

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[angel'o'sphere]

For Celsius, you really have to go out to one decimal point to be very accurate with outdoor temperatures.
Who would care about a decimal point in outdoor temperatures? Are you an autist or something?

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[T.E.D.]

The text is from a quote in a US newspaper. I suppose the editors could have babied you and put in a translation for your sensitive foreign eyes. However, this website is ALSO hosted in the US, and most of its editors and audience are US-based. So realistically, if you can't abide by seeing US units on things treated as the default, perhaps you should consider visiting non-US websites. I hear there are a lot of them on the interwebs these days.

One wonders if you demand your friends immediately replace their old ugly furniture when you visit their houses too...

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Darinbob]

Fahrenheit is used in some other places, though not oficially. You can find Fahrenheit listed in some UK newspapers (sometimes parenthesized).

Basically people get stuck in their ways. You can't just put your foot down and insist that everyone start using new measurement and then they will suddenly become experts and forget their past. There's always a transition period. UK still commonly uses "stone" for a person's weight, and "mile" for instances, beer is served in "pints". A british gallon used in MPG is not the same as an American gallon, although for volume of other goods litre will be used. In the US, celsius is the standard for science and engineering for sure, even though you're not going to usually see that in the stores.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[avandesande]

Rock On!!! :-)

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong!

You can only call it a glass of water is it's made of glass and holds water. If you mix something with the water then the water is just an ingredient in your mixture, but you can't call your mixture water anymore.

How's that for pedantry?

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[chuckugly]

Celsius is actually perfect.

I've spent a lot of time in 'metric' places; if it were perfect, the thermostats wouldn't all have to have 0.5C graduations, for instance. Units of metric volume and cooking is another domain example where the utility of metric units is not ideal.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Goaway]

And what is that temperature?

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[labnet]

Sure, that might be the case in the USA, but outside nobody under 30 has a clue what F is anymore without having to look it up.
On an international news site, even if it is based in the USA, you should use celcius.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Megol]

Celsius and Kelvin are used for different purposes. One is for absolute temperatures that can represent from zero entropy to infinity on a scale that starts at the minimum possible temperature (well there are some claims of negative Kelvins but that isn't using the normal definition of temperatures). The other is a general purpose scale where the zero is the freezing point of the most important chemical we know and the 100 degree is defined as the boiling point of the same chemical under some assumptions.

The uses are different but it is trivial to convert between them: add or subtract 273.15. So in other words they are on the same scale but with different starting points.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Chris Mattern]

Not having a thermometer handy, I can't be precise, but I'd say somewhere around 72 degrees F, maybe a few degrees warmer. (it's 90 outside, but I'm in an air-conditioned building).

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists use Kelvin, you dumb fat creationist gobshite.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[omnichad]

I really only care about if for indoor temperatures. But the point is, you don't need a decimal point to be more accurate with Fahrenheit.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[allcoolnameswheretak]

I love America, which is why I hate Trump.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer my air conditioners with 0.5C increments. When they only have 1C increments, I often find myself resorting to manual override, as one setting is a little too cold, and the next increment up is a little too warm. So probably 1F is closer to my limit of perception.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[angel'o'sphere]

Well,
my regulation device for indoor heating obviously uses .0 and .5 steps.
Did not know that that is inconvenient for some people :D

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[angel'o'sphere]

if it were perfect, the thermostats wouldn't all have to have 0.5C graduations, for instance
Yes, and the prices in the grocery store would always be whole Euros.

Sigh ....

Units of metric volume and cooking is another domain example where the utility of metric units is not ideal.

Rofl ... how do you come to that idea? Most cooking recipes are actually build around metric units. If you look around cooking then the differences between imperial and metric only result in using one more egg or one less egg and a slightly larger or smaller dish. The differences between your pound and my pound is about 10%, your pint is a bit more than half a litter, so "a half pint" and a quarter liter are close to the same, and so on.

The nice thing about metrics is that weight and volume is coupled for most liquids, so if you are in a hurry and need a quarter liter of milk you can just weight 250g.

Bottom lines it comes down to what you are used to use. There is absolutely no difference in efficiency or what ever when I use metrics and you use what ever system suits you.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[omnichad]

Integers make me nice and happy, and decimal points tend to be spaced weird on device UIs anyway from a graphic design / typography standpoint.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[angel'o'sphere]

Well, my "thermostat" has a nice old school LCD :D

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[chuckugly]

if it were perfect, the thermostats wouldn't all have to have 0.5C graduations, for instance Yes, and the prices in the grocery store would always be whole Euros.

When I walk into a hotel room, the thermostat is going to either be graduated in whole degrees F or 0.5 degrees C, because in the range for human comfort (a very common range to measure) the graduations that most people care about are about that amount. When I go for a tablespoon of oil, I don't think 15ml. Well I do but that's because I know the conversion. The meter itself is based on a goofy arbitrary standard. Something like a light nanosecond would make a lot more sense actually.

Even base 10 is OK, but again, it's not ideal really, base 12 (or 24) actually has a lot of advantages, as does base 16. Consider the difficulty in implementing decimal time, where a day was 10 hours instead of 24.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find Celsius to be good for cooking.
Want to heat a sandwich or pastry in an oven? Stay under 100C with a safety margin. Boiling point of water is a good approximation for a point above which your stuffed will be charred or burned.
Want to do a slow cooking recipe? Stay a few tens under 100C.
Want to touch something with bare hands, want to drink something? Safety margin below 100C.

Cooking, frying, baking? Above or well above 100C.

Fridge temp? A few degrees above 0C (4C is excellent and a naturally occurring temp of really cold water, or 4C to 6C range for the fridge)
Of course it's moot if you know 40F for fridge and 212F for boiling.

um for volume units in cooking, I'll give you that metric countries use teaspoon, tablespoon and pinch. But 10cL and 20cL and 250mL are easy to relate to.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[RockDoctor]

Catering to the most local audience - where many of the ads are most relevant to - makes sense.

Slashdot has adverts? I've literally never seen one, and I've only been using an ad-blocker for the most-recent three or four years of my usage.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[RockDoctor]

And don't even start me on pints, ounces, fluid ounces....

"Pint" is a measure for beer ; ounces are what you buy your cannabis in ; outside American recipes, I've never seen fluid ounces used. Ever. So, from context, you know what unit the measurement is in.

I had a American once recite a ditty taught him by his father, that "a pint [is] a pound / the world around". When of course, a pint is a pound and a quarter. Because a gallon weighs ten pounds.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[RockDoctor]

Rock Off!

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[angel'o'sphere]

Sorry, as I said before, it is a matter of how you grew up.
1/4 of "a thing expressed in 16th steps" is simply 1/4.
1/4 of "a thing expressed in 10th steps" is simply 1/4.

No one who is cooking cares about the actual units and if they are "easily dividable" (an american myth, probably an explanation why that nation is going downhill).

And luckily, except when you only need a single one, no one is using 'spoons' anymore in cooking recipes.

Consider the difficulty in implementing decimal time, where a day was 10 hours instead of 24.
That was a political problem, and honestly makes no sense anyway.
what is next? A ten month year? With what ... 3 ten month weeks and a 'break week'?
It can't be helped but the planet has a 365 days year and some odd 28 days months. Going completely artificial in a time thing makes no sense at all.

I for my part like it that the sun is rising roughly 6:00 in the morning and setting 18:00 in the evening. And the times 'expand' in summer and 'shrink' in winter. A very convenient system. Around 12:00 the sun is straight over my head ... more or less, as timezones are quite big now.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[chuckugly]

Consider the difficulty in implementing decimal time, where a day was 10 hours instead of 24. That was a political problem, and honestly makes no sense anyway. what is next? A ten month year? With what ... 3 ten month weeks and a 'break week'?

Could be 10 months of 36 and 37 days I guess. But working out the reason for not having decimal time is a good exercise toward understanding why C being too coarse for conveniently expressing temps that humans care about most is a decided shortcoming. Personally I'm pretty comfortable in base 2, 8, 10, 12, or 16 but I guess I could learn others if there was a good reason. The ones I know all have utility in my life.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[DontBeAMoran]

Just FIY, the lunar lander feet were made in Québec, Canada. So technically we landed on the moon first.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[angel'o'sphere]

But working out the reason for not having decimal time is a good exercise toward understanding why C being too coarse for conveniently expressing temps that humans care about most is a decided shortcoming
Considering that 7.5 billion minus roughly 400.000.000 americans use C, that is a pointless exercise.
I already explained to you: if you grow up with a unit of measurement, you prefer that over others. Beyond that there is no particular benefit of one over the other, unless you compare complete systems, where SI clearly wins.

The reason why we have 24 hours is super simple. Most old number systems used a mixed 20 and 60 based system. And during old times the day had 12 double hours ... which later got split up into smaller hours, hence we have 24 now. And why do we have complex number systems instead of ten based systems? Well: by a cool accident the year has more or less exactly 360 days. That is the reason why a circle is measured with 360 degrees. The sun, or a particular star, is rising every night "one degree off" versus the night before. From a 360 "number system" we split down to a 60 based one and have minutes with 60 seconds and hours with 60 minutes. Of course you could define the length of a second arbitrarily and come up with a 10h day. However by a cool accident most adults have a heart beat of about 60 per minute, when healthy.

You probably were right with the "convenience" of Fahrenheit if it would start at the freezing point of water with zero and had 300F at the boiling point of water. Now I have to memorize the freezing point, I guess it was 17F? And memorizing such arbitrary stuff is completely pointless (for me). I guess it is even a stupid question asked in school and you get looked down uppon if you can not memorize it and get a bad grade in "nature science"?

With the current definition it feels very cumbersome for anyone who is using C. (But as I said: that is only because we are used to use C)

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[chuckugly]

The reason why we have 24 hours is super simple.

Yes, it's because 24 is evenly divisible by many factors. A 10 hour day would require factories to operate on 3.33 hour shifts and so on, not something natural to deal with in day to day life, much like a thermostat that offers fractional degree adjustments. I'm not claiming F is great either,it's a stupid system for a host of other reasons, but for expressing the temperature in terms of human comfort it's (for me and others) a superior system. In this context (which is what the thread is about) the ridiculous 32F freezing point is irrelevant. Humans are comfortable between maybe 60 and 80, and they don't require fractions of that range to express their precise preference.

Outside science, what is the advantage of C over F? Also, I grew up using both, in the Carter era, and I used C in my automation and science work since. It's great for that. But not for expressing everything. If it was we wouldn't have C, F, K and so on. Each has a domain.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[angel'o'sphere]

Yes, it's because 24 is evenly divisible by many factors.
No. That is an american fallacy. I explained you how we came to to 24 hour system. But perhaps you like to do your own research. (No one in the rest of the world ever used that "divisible by many factors" argument. It is completely irrelevant for everything. As I pointed out several posts back: 1/4 of a thing is 1/4, 1/6 of a thing is 1/6 ... no one cares if one or both end up as even numbers or fractions. And the "number systems" most certainly never where picked for that purposes)

A 10 hour day would require factories to operate on 3.33 hour shifts and so on
And who would care about working 3hours and 1/3rd?

I'm not claiming F is great either,it's a stupid system for a host of other reasons, but for expressing the temperature in terms of human comfort it's (for me and others) a superior system.
Yes, and for me and about 7billion others it s not.
So we are now back on square one ;D

Humans are comfortable between maybe 60 and 80,
And in Celsius humans are comfortable in the range of 20 to 30 degrees. Erm ... what exactly was your point? You don't live with Celsius. So you have absolutely no clue how "comfortable" we are with the scale.
And I don't have any clue how comfortable you are with Fahrenheit.

Why can't you agree on that?

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[chuckugly]

And in Celsius humans are comfortable in the range of 20 to 30 degrees.

And virtually no one, anywhere, adjusts their comfort with a C thermostat that adjusts in 1 degree C increments. I've lived quite a lot, years on end, in places where C is the norm. My passport required extra visa pages last time around, I've lived with both systems, something you perhaps cannot truthfully claim. In any case I don't see any convergence of opinion on this one.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[Goaway]

And how is 72 a clearly superior number to use over 22? They are both arbitrary, and you learn from experience what they mean.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[angel'o'sphere]

Yeah, because you don't try to understand my standpoint.
I understand yours. And only say for my life and plenty of people on the plant your standpoint is irrelevant. I happily use 0.5 scales to adjust my temperature, why would I not?
Of course I never lived in Fahrenheit country, AFAIK the USA are the only ones using it. And I'm actually a bit to scared to visit the USA with all that violence, unreliable police and strange legal system.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[chuckugly]

Oh I understand it's easy for you to get slightly the wrong amount of milk by measuring 250g and assuming the specific gravity is the same as pure water instead of just eyeballing it or going by an actual volume measure. Seriously, have you EVER really had to do that? What would be the use case for that in real life? The easy conversions to caloric units are not useful in daily life, but in general the huge advantage of the metric system is the interrelatedness of the units. Being decimal ... not so sure about but it's OK. The meter? As I said, I'd much rather, if we're going for interrelated units, do it right and use something like a light nanosecond as the base unit of linear measure.

Saying "I prefer 22 point 5 as my ideal room temperature" is just evidence of a hack. If C is better than F for that, then for all the same reasons K is better than C - use that..

As for violence, if you stick to interacting with the non-gang part of the culture the rate of violence is actually on par with a typical european country. For instance as a middle class white person, my odds of being murdered per year are around 1:100,000, which is pretty average for europe, but higher than places like Japan. If you want to come here and hang out in the urban jungle and maybe score some meth, well yeah, you might become a victim; if you plan to get into the business, even more likely.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[angel'o'sphere]

Saying "I prefer 22 point 5 as my ideal room temperature" is just evidence of a hack. If C is better than F for that, then for all the same reasons K is better than C - use that..
I simply disagree.
C: 0 has a well defined meaning. 100 is for daily life irrelevant. My body temperature is 36.8 or something, we round it to 37. That I have to use 22.5 (which is rather warm) bothers no one.
F: 0 is a completely meaningless temperature. 100 is my body temperature. Freezing point of water, important for dressing right or knowing if the roads might be icy: a complete "random number" which you have to memorize. Comfortable room temperature, now you don't need a 0.5 thingy, wow, that is an improvement. For you, for me it is ridiculous.
K: 0 is a nice defined value. 100 is meaningless. Freezing point of water is again a hard to memorize number. My body temperature is a hard to memorize number. The comfortable room temperature is a hard to memorize number, and like C it will be adjusted in 0.5 steps.

As you clearly can see: for me the only valid option for temperature measurement in real life is ... ta tam: C.

And as we are talking about it now since days: I realize the only sensible temperature measurement for you is F.

So: why not just agree that each of us has his personal preferences, which come from culture and not because one or the other system is superior?

For instance as a middle class white person, my odds of being murdered per year are around 1:100,000
That might be from the numbers true. But:
a) robbery on a gasoline station or a drug store with guns and potential murder: that never happens in Europe (well never is exaggerated, somewhere at some time that might happen, but it is unlikely one gets killed) Murder basically only happen among friends or family.
b) if you stop with your car (as a tourist), and a guy shoots your wife: in Europe the first idea is, there is a murderer running around with a gun, we need to get him. In the USA the first idea is: the husband killed his wife, where is the gun?
c) in Europe police and state attorney work hard to get the right people. In the USA they work hard to get convictions and get as Sheriff, Judge or State Attorney reelected.

Yes, I exaggerate. But there are enough Germans in death row because of b) and c) in the USA, and I don't really want to visit such a country.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[chuckugly]

F: 0 is a completely meaningless temperature.

A common misconception. Zero F is actually the freezing point of salt water of a specific salinity. The other points were chosen such that the distance from pure water freezing to boiling was 180 degrees.

That might be from the numbers true. But: a) robbery on a gasoline station or a drug store with guns and potential murder: that never happens in Europe (well never is exaggerated, somewhere at some time that might happen, but it is unlikely one gets killed) Murder basically only happen among friends or family. b) if you stop with your car (as a tourist), and a guy shoots your wife: in Europe the first idea is, there is a murderer running around with a gun, we need to get him. In the USA the first idea is: the husband killed his wife, where is the gun? c) in Europe police and state attorney work hard to get the right people. In the USA they work hard to get convictions and get as Sheriff, Judge or State Attorney reelected.

Yes, I exaggerate. But there are enough Germans in death row because of b) and c) in the USA, and I don't really want to visit such a country.

Somebody has been watching too many movies or something.

(a) No one dies from a robber almost deciding to shoot them, and again, violent crime that's not murder is generally the same or lower in the USA than Europe. In fact our overall crime rate is about half that of Canada, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and Finland, for instance.

(b) False.

(c) False

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[angel'o'sphere]

A common misconception. Zero F is actually the freezing point of salt water of a specific salinity. The other points were chosen such that the distance from pure water freezing to boiling was 180 degrees.

No it is not. First if all the freezing point of a salt water solution is not interesting. No one is confronted with that in real life.
The 'other point' is 100F, that is your body temperature.
There is no mystical 180 point (what would be the sense of that?) for boiling water? That is a coincident.

B) and C) are true, There are probabky a thousand cases.

The crime rate in the US is roughly five to ten times higher than in Europe, the murder cases more than 100 times.
No idea where you get your numbers from. You can easy google that.

Re:Past the boiling point of water?

[chuckugly]

After more research it seems you're half right; the initial scale was 0 as the temperature of a brine solution at it's phase change point and 96, not 100, was selected as body temperature. Those seem like perfectly useful reference points really, for daily use.

As for crime rates: http://www.nationmaster.com/co...

It's like hell

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like hell, probably to give the muslims a chance to get used to it

Re:It's like hell

[PopeRatzo]

It's like hell, probably to give the muslims a chance to get used to it

Phoenix, Arizona serves the same function for Christians.

Re:It's like hell

[unixisc]

Despite this, the Iranians want nukes. It won't be noticably hotter if a nuke goes off in Ahvaz

Re:It's like hell

[ColdWetDog]

No, that's Trenton, NJ. Hell traditionally hasn't been thought of as a hot place.

Maybe it's just Climate Change again.

Re:It's like hell

[PopeRatzo]

Next to Phoenix, Trenton is almost paradise.

Re:It's like hell

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends, are we talking temperatures or stench?

wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

All fake news.

Sad!

TheRealDonaldTrump

Re:wrong!

[PopeRatzo]

"Mother Nature is bleeding from her whatever."

Re:wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

You all never gonna get bored with this bloody 'meme'?! Sad!

#HadEnough

Iranian Plot

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just an Iranian plot to destroy the US economy by getting us to ignore the sage advice of our leader, the great and wonderful Donald Trump, and make efforts to combat climate change.

In reality, the evil Iranian dictator, Mohammad Ali, forced everyone in the country to hold their cigarette buttes against the thermometers.

            Loyal Trump Supporter

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Records are always being broken for lows and highs.

The obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Is to blame global warming and force you to buy a hybrid Toyota Camry.

But keeping NASCAR is ok, because they have more money than you.

Re:The obvious solution

[DontBeAMoran]

Bash on NASCAR all you want but a few dozen cars racing a few times every year is nowhere near as polluting as the millions of daily commutes being done by regular people.

Re:The obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

AC was referring to the thousands of full-size SUV's and jacked-up 4x4 crew-cab pickup trucks with emissions defeating modifications that crowd the parking-lots of every NSACAR venue.

Re:The obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that in the last decade or so, more and more cars, trucks, and other vehicles run their headlight constantly. You can't tell me that the additional current draw and the lights themselves aren't helping keep the temperature up.

Re:The obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Recently read some research about this. The switch to LED bulbs alone has reduced the energy use to where you can keep a LED bulb on all the time while driving and typically use less energy than traditional bulbs on only at dusk/dark. Additionally, (more importantly actually) DRL (daytime running lights) have been shown statically to reduce accidents. In addition to deaths/injuries reduced, the reduction in replacement parts, and the energy that would have been used to produce/transport them, more than makes up for the energy used by DRLs.

Queue the Global Warming Argument...

[bobbied]

I'll start the "See it's global warming!" --- "You are full of it!" Thread that You know is coming..

Re:Queue the Global Warming Argument...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're full of it... :-D

Re:Queue the Global Warming Argument...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of statistics knows that under a normal distribution, every day there is a non-zero chance that records will be broken. Given the fact of automated temperature measuring, the ability to measure temperature to tenths of a degree, widespread record keeping that didn't exist in the past, this really cannot be attributed to anything other than the normal course of events. This is slightly interesting but really is not news.

Re:Queue the Global Warming Argument...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they might be on to something... as summer approached this year, I noticed this trend that it seemed to be getting hotter outside. It's weird. I'm scared. I hope the government does something about it that costs a lot of money.

Re:Queue the Global Warming Argument...

[Opportunist]

Nah. It's an isolated event. We might start to talk about global warming if this becomes somewhat frequent.

Re: Queue the Global Warming Argument...

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

What is coming is...

Wait for it...

Winter!

Re:Queue the Global Warming Argument...

[DontBeAMoran]

I wrote to the president and he said the government will help poor people buy an Anonymous Coward to cool their home.

Re: Queue the Global Warming Argument...

[DontBeAMoran]

Fuck yeah! Summer winter! Wait, that's just regular weather for Canada, because all americans know we live in fucking igloos.

Re:Queue the Global Warming Argument...

[Anonymous Coward]

Worry not, citizen! They are already prepping a $5 trillion relief bill. It's expected to pass sometime in Sept/Oct at which point you'll start seeing the temperatures start to fall.

Re: Queue the Global Warming Argument...

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

I've been told that all those igloos are made out of frozen maple syrup too.

That's nice and all

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's not for nerds and doesn't matter.

What about ....

[Anonymous Coward]

... Nagasaki?

Re:What about ....

[Anonymous Coward]

the under-50 crowd doesn't know what that means. OOOOOOOO BLINKY LIGHTS.......

Mass Migration?

[seven of five]

Won't it be fun in coming decades when most of the Middle East beats it for less insufferably hot parts of the world?

Re:Mass Migration?

[DontBeAMoran]

I hear Antarctica is very nice at this time of year.

Re:Mass Migration?

[Opportunist]

I think they already do. But it's not exactly for the weather.

Re:Mass Migration?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they already do. But it's not exactly for the weather.

Yes, lovely new settlements in the west like Qa'boom and Dirkadirka.

Re:Mass Migration?

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Actually, this is one of the major reasons for the problems in Syria. The drought that started in 2006 caused many farmers to migrate into the city, which then helped kick-start their ongoing civil war. It's only going to get worse.

Re:Mass Migration?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and? You have no right to tell someone where they should or shouldn't legally reside.

capcha: chattel

Re:Mass Migration?

[Nethemas the Great]

I'm told it's greening up quite nicely.

Re:Mass Migration?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's to avoid the lead pollution.

Re:Mass Migration?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine. We'll send them to your yard.

Re:Mass Migration?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure war in Lebanon, endless slaughter in Iraq didn't help things. In Iraq things got completely out of hand and Syria was a major destination for refugees - I don't know how many, I think I can safely say it was many hundreds of thousands at least. Imagine that! Syria was where refugees fled to.
It's mind boggling than the years 2006-2008 etc. now are like "good old times" when the Middle East was more "peaceful" than it is now.

Now a discontent, idle, impoverished urban populace certainly is a factor but that made it more easy for CIA, Saudi, UAE etc. to stir up lethal violence.

129 degrees??

[OzPeter]

Wow .. the water must be boiling in the streets!

Oh .. you mean 54 degrees .. like was mentioned in TFA

The information comes from Etienne Kapikian, a meteorologist with Meteo France, the French national weather service.

Officially, he said the temperature was 53.7 degrees Celsius, which is 128.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Iran’s previous hottest temperature was 127.4 degrees.

Re:129 degrees??

[bill_mcgonigle]

Oh .. you mean 54 degrees .. like was mentioned in TFA

That's 327 K, you backwards Luddite. "Degrees" - what is this, the Dark Ages?

Re: 129 degrees??

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't a "backwards Luddite" really the most "appiest appy app" that can convert all the units?

Re:129 degrees??

[DontBeAMoran]

What do you mean? 327 KB or 327 KiB?

Re:129 degrees??

[Cro Magnon]

This proves my belief that we Americans are tougher than the rest of the world. You guys have trouble if it gets above 40. We can take it up over 100.

Re:129 degrees??

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you! So it is about 1.3 degrees F warmer than the record? When was the record set?

Mesopotamia?

[skovnymfe]

Isn't Iran in the old Mesopotamia region? The one that almost died out way-back-when because of sudden climate change? I suppose it wouldn't be much of a surprise if that's the first region to go again in the next sudden climate change.

Re:Mesopotamia?

[nnet]

yes, that event was called The Flood, ask Noah about it, allegedly he witnessed it...

Re: Mesopotamia?

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no room left for the unicorns on the ark.

Sad!

Re:Mesopotamia?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me explain this. The myth of the flood was caused by a real fact, which was the breaking of the ice dam that contained the Agassiz Lake [see Wikipedia], in North America, in the final days of the last Ice Age. The lake was the size of today's Black Sea, and all the water was released at once. Sea level rose up very quickly. This event was the basis for the Flood myth and, as a matter of fact, created the already mentioned Black sea and the English Channel/La Manche, among other fetures.

It's easy when you do a little reading once in a while.

Re:Mesopotamia?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Iran in the old Mesopotamia region? The one that almost died out way-back-when because of sudden climate change? I suppose it wouldn't be much of a surprise if that's the first region to go again in the next sudden climate change.

I will concede. I am no longer a climate change skeptic. I am climate change supporter. I am in favor of doing anything possible and practical to raise the CO2 levels. I may even go buy a SUV tomorrow.

Re:Mesopotamia?

[Anonymous Coward]

and i'm sure your reading supplied evidence to connect this alleged event with the various flood myths? Or is it perhaps more plausible that the universal nature of the flood myth (found in many places around the world) is because it is a universal notion. And since you are talking about myths, might I suggest for your future reading you consider the various works by Joseph Campbell. Oh, and you might try the book of Genesis and see how many different flood myths were compressed into that one story.

Re:Mesopotamia?

[angel'o'sphere]

Noah did not live there ... if you trust in the bible he lived in the Levant or Turkey.

Re:Mesopotamia?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this modded Interesting? A flood in North America created the Black Sea and the English Channel?
I don't know if it's a troll or a genuine moron.

Re:Mesopotamia?

[T.E.D.]

Isn't Iran in the old Mesopotamia region?

No, it is not. They are neighbors, but if you want to map ancient to modern terms, Mesopotamia = Iraq. Persia = Iran.

Re:Mesopotamia?

[strikethree]

Isn't Iran in the old Mesopotamia region?

It is easy to have this misconception since the Golden Crescent region does include parts of Iran.

Mesopotamia is the land in between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers... which become conjoined around Baghdad. In other words, Iraq.

I have to wonder about the this being the hottest temperature ever recorded. Summer in Baghdad 2005, early July IIRC, I saw a thermometer claim that it was ~145F. To be honest, it was the harshest heat I had ever felt in my life. I stayed inside an air conditioned room (~17C) and had to step outside from time to time as my body temperature would drop. The hot sun would feel glorious for about 10 minutes (perfect for smoking a cigarette) then going back inside to chill again. Well, on the day that I saw ~145F, I stepped outside with an unlit cigarette in my mouth and before I could light it, I stepped right the the fuck back inside not caring about missing a chance to smoke. It was so hot that even 10 seconds of it did not feel good on my semi-frozen body.

Florida is the closest I have seen to that kind of hell. Not because the temperature is so hot but that the humidity starts feeling solid after about ~98F.

Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

The hottest temperature recorded in Death Valley was 134 F on July 10, 1913, nearly 100 years ago, which is still modern times since people who were alive then are STILL alive. Good try, though.

Re: Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

This is much hotter since 129C is 264F. Global warming is out of control since Trump left the Paris Accords.

Re: Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

But still even at over 250 degrees, Republicans still won't admit there's a problem.

Re: Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

My asthma has gotten much worse since Trump did that. Also, increased heat since then makes it worse. It's so much hotter now. Here in Seattle we just had the hottest day ever recorded in July. People are dying at the tiny hands of rump.

Re: Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

264 is so hot that even a Republican can't lie and claim it isn't. Oh wait. They're already here and downplaying it.

Re: Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the people that just died since Trump did that and how things are only going to get worse, our lives have been destroyed by Trump. When you can't even go outside because of the heat, we are prisoners. Trump has imprisoned humanity.

Re:Bullshit

[iggymanz]

Except meteorologists now think that reading by a mining company employee was false and not possible. The record then is 129.2 degrees F

WTF

[DontBeAMoran]

Etienne Kapikian, a forecaster at French meteorological agency MeteoFrance, posted to Twitter that the city of Ahvaz soared to 53.7C (128.7 "degrees Fahrenheit").

Fixed that for you.

Re:WTF

[Oswald McWeany]

Etienne Kapikian, a forecaster at French meteorological agency MeteoFrance, posted to Twitter that the city of Ahvaz soared to 53.7C (128.7 "degrees Fahrenheit").

Fixed that for you.

Yes, but the headline (until they fix it as I'm sure they must eventually) still says:

Iranian City Soars To Record 129C Degrees: Near Hottest On Earth in Modern Measurements

That's quite an amusing snafu.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

ERROR: unit mismatch! Coulomb is not a unit for temperature.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

"near hottest"

It's not even a record. So it's hot in a desert - next we'll get "Water still among Earth's wettest substances" as a headline.

Re:WTF

[Bing Tsher E]

Nowhere in that sentence did I see it mentioned that the "53.7C" mentioned was a temperature. Perhaps 'the city of Ahvaz' is actually a large capacitor that was charged to 53.7 coulombs. Depending on the voltage involved, that could make it a particularly large capacitor.

Reliable Iranian Heat

[Anonymous Coward]

Where can I buy some of that for my house for the winter?

I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[pecosdave]

I have seen very close to that - my home town made it to 128 one summer.

The thing is it was such a shit-hole of a town there are no official weather stations there. All the official measurements were taken miles away in Odessa or other shit-hole towns they happened to put weather stations in or around. Pecos just was ignored, and was in a unique place geological being in a wide plane surrounded by mountain ranges and higher elevations, it created a type of hot-box effect. I was driving a 1983 GMC Sierra Classic at the time. The little orange needle that showed if you were in PRND1-2 melted in half and the spring pulled it to the left. My sisters walkman melted in it.

So, due to all of the locals reading their own thermometers and the local channel 6 (which was just a CGA graphics info readout) saying it got up to 128 I know it was there. Since Kermit Texas some miles to the North never made it that high we never officially made it there.

That was in 1994 I believe. As far as I know it hasn't passed 118 or so since. My dad tells me in 75 or so when he was working the feedlots it got up to about 132. I wasn't born yet so I certainly can't confirm that one.

At least in my little world both the hot and the cold extremes have tapered based on my own limited observations. The rains have become more erratic, but having moved away from that area my own observations are no longer current.

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[rmdingler]

111 fahrenheit is this year's high in Midland/Odessa... probably got up to 118-120 in Pecos.

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in Goodyear, AZ (just west of Phoenix) and it hit 122 here two weeks ago. Whats another few degrees? It just makes the 110 degree days feel cool.

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[flatulus]

Pecos huh? Nice gas station there. Nearly got bit by a rattlesnake near Pecos a couple of years ago. Enjoy your fame, friend!

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[pecosdave]

I didn't even visit for a ten year stretch, not that I didn't want to go see my sister, life just stacked up and kept me from heading West.

Then for reasons unrelated to hitting on her I talked to a friends little sister. Well, now I'm married to a home-town girl and I visit several times a year - and I just have to live with the party foul of hooking up with a friends sister...

For people unfamiliar with the area - unless it's rodeo week or something there isn't much of a reason to visit Pecos unless there's something very particular to your interest. On the other hand if you cruise through West Texas the most awesome swimming pool I've ever seen is nearby and totally worth checking out.

Gas station - that's a funny one. I usually tell people "A town in West Texas is likely to be a gas station and a couple of trailer houses". Pecos is bigger than that, but I get it.

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[d34thm0nk3y]

There's more than a million people in Ahvaz. For reference, that's about the size of Seattle and Denver combined.

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[k6mfw]

did you ever fry an egg on a street? like the opening seen in late 60s movie "Tick, Tick, Tick"

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[pecosdave]

Yes.

It fried.

To top it off we ran around bare-foot all summer as kids. We were standing in the very street the egg was frying on bare-footed, at least for short periods of time. It's amazing what the human body can adapt to with conditioning. I won't even walk out the door bare footed anymore.

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1994, an interesting coincidence, I felt the most extreme cold I ever have in a tiny isolated town in northern Wisconsin. The story is the same but in the other thermal direction. I remember it being -44 for nearly a week, day and night. Only the windchill changed from -44 to -52. I remember being outside for just a few minutes as a child, my lower lip freezing, cracking, bleeding, and scarring. I still have that scar.

The local radio, my thermometer, and the neighbors were all in sync but the official NOAA station was at an airport some miles away through the woods so the record low was never placed into the database.

Every few years I look up what the new official low temp is for that year. It keeps going down and I have no idea why.

My family and friends still talk about that year and many others that reached -30 or lower, even having pictures, but if you looked up the official measure they are as warm as -18.

The same happens to my family members in Colorado. Some live in shaded valleys that get 20 degrees colder than the next town over. A valley community with 100 people apparently doesn't count for record temperatures.

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[painandgreed]

There's more than a million people in Ahvaz. For reference, that's about the size of Seattle and Denver combined.

Technically, if you only include people in the specific city limits and not those in the adjacent communities and metro areas. It's more like Tulsa, OK in metro areas as Ahvaz only has one sizable adjacent community.

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[T.E.D.]

my home town made it to 128 one summer.

I thought so too. But it turns out we (Tulsa) only had an official high around 113 that year, even though things near roads like bank thermometers and my car thermometer were in the upper 120's. Our record high is still 115, from back during the dust bowl. So if I were you I'd check on that.

I have a convertible, and happened to be outside driving in mid-day on the hottest day that year when it was 113 (127 according to my car). I enjoy nature, and the heat. If I'm wearing shorts and the car is moving with the top down, that's generally plenty of cooling. On that day, I actually pulled over on the highway to put the top up. I'm a manly tough guy and all, but sitting in direct sunlight in that heat is just foolishness. If it actually got 15 degrees hotter somewhere than it was here that day, I certainly wouldn't want to even think about being outside. I doubt shade would even help much.

We're in for a fun century. Thankfully I'm in my 50's so I won't have to live through the end of it. Have fun cleaning up my generation's mess, everyone!

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[T.E.D.]

Pecos just was ignored, and was in a unique place geological being in a wide plane surrounded by mountain ranges and higher elevations, it created a type of hot-box effect. I was driving a 1983 GMC Sierra Classic at the time. The little orange needle that showed if you were in PRND1-2 melted in half and the spring pulled it to the left. My sisters walkman melted in it.

Ahhh. Didn't notice you'd mentioned your town name. Your official record high for Pecos, TX is 118 (from back in 1968).

So that really hot day you remember? Picture it being more than 10 degrees hotter than that.

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked in Jal for a couple of years. A town literally named after a brand-mark on some cattle found nearby

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[pecosdave]

What I do know - I moved to Phoenix directly after high school and the locals didn't believe me when I said it wasn't as hot as where I was from.

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[pecosdave]

I don't want to get too into it because I don't have time to argue, defend and research.

I've noticed when the earth hits one extreme in the year it often hits the other as well. It makes some sense to me where wobble is concerned. Yeah, I totally believe your version of things.

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[RockDoctor]

there are no official weather stations there. All the official measurements were taken miles away in Odessa or other shit-hole towns they happened to put weather stations in or around.

Many "official" weather stations are (or were) on airfields, because the requirements (for temperature and wind speed measurements in particular) require soil not asphalt, plans, not bare soil, and a certain distance from buildings or relief or trees greater than X m tall ... which doesn't dictate an airfield, but if you fulfil those conditions, there's a good chance that your site would make a good airfield.

Were there any (temporary) airfields established in your area as the Germans invaded, or as the Soviets pushed them back? That would be a good place to try to site an "official" weather station.

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[pecosdave]

There was a local airport, for crop dusters, etc.... Occasionally something bigger landed there, but it made the news paper when it did.

For some reason I can't explain the weather equipment wasn't official. I don't know if there were certification requirements it didn't meet or what, but if it costs money you can bet it wasn't met.

There really weren't any trees.

The soil was mostly clay based, I actually rode a normal skateboard off road (80's style wide wheels) occasionally as a kid.

I haven't checked, but I'm sure by now there's something official. The town has had a growth boom in recent years since so much of th oil field has returned. It will be interesting to see if new records get set in the near future.

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[RockDoctor]

but if it costs money you can bet it wasn't met.

Proper weather stations require maintenance, which requires money. If nothing else, the calibrations on the instruments must be checked regularly - does the dry thermometer read the same as a suite of check thermometers? Has a rat eaten the mesh off the wet bulb (or, for that matter, shat on it)? Is there a boot-shaped ding in the rain gauge?

Then the reading techniques need to be checked. For day-shift and night shift observers. So you've already guaranteed that your calibration checker has spent a day on site, excluding travel costs. That'll be the thick end of a kilobuck for wages, transport and accommodation already. Yearly.

I just did a mental count of the airfields in the county with sufficient "general aviation" to probably need a weather station, and got 22. 3/4 of them on the mainland, and no problem to get to by road. The remaining quarter are in outlying island groups (including 2 airfields with a scheduled mile-and-a-bit route between them) and would take around half of the effort for a calibration cycle. I wouldn't do that job for less than £30,000, which is whatever kilobucks.

Short version : weather stations cost money to build, equip, and maintain.

Re:I grew up in a hole in the ground in the desert

[pecosdave]

Right, which is why that shit-hole didn't have one.

Near highest ever?

[planckscale]

The official highest recorded temperature is now 56.7C (134F), which was measured on 10 July 1913 at Greenland Ranch, Death Valley, California, USA. So yeah it's pretty high but call me when it gets to 135F.

Re:Near highest ever?

[Anonymous Coward]

They qualified it with "in modern times". I guess people in 1913 were incapable of producing a good measurement... Nonsense

Re:Near highest ever?

[Nethemas the Great]

Perhaps being more than a century past might make it not so modern.

Re:Near highest ever?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 134 reading in Death Valley is suspect and is probably incorrect.

Re:Near highest ever?

[aoism]

That was "not possible from a meteorological perspective" so they dismissed that record, and now they are like "We're #1! We're #1! Climate Change yall!". I expect nothing less from the Washington Post.

Re:Near highest ever?

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on what, exactly? Your say-so? Jesus fuck, give me a break, little bitch.

Re:Near highest ever?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that Australia had a record high of 56C, but I just looked it up and it was 50.6C at Oodnadatta, South Australia in 1960.

My brother works at a remote mine a couple of hundred kilometres in a westerly direction from there and he says that during summer their weather station often reports the temperature there is in the 50s and that it feels cooler at the bottom of the mine where the ambient temperature is in the high 40s

I have a friend who works at a gas processing plant a couple of hundred kilometres to the east of there and he says that the weather station there also reports similar figures during summer.

It gets so hot that like was reported in Arizona recently, planes can't take-off or land. Both of them have had their flights there or home delayed by a couple of days during summers because of that. At the gas plant, maintenance workers doing work out in the field on pipelines and wells have to travel with multiple vehicles in case one breaks down so that they have some semblance of air-conditioned space and refrigerated water available.

They definitely earn their money.

Re:Near highest ever?

[Anonymous Coward]

that, and the probability that it isn't real. Death Valley has the current crown because doubt was cast on the previous accepted record. There's no more validity to the Death Valley record than the previous holder (El Azizia, Libya), but the only ones who seem really concerned are Americans so it doesn't look likely to change any time soon.

Re: Near highest ever?

[Anonymous Coward]

They put their tools in buckets of water when working in the sun as they get too hot to pick up otherwise.

Re: Near highest ever?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I've seen video of people cooking bacon and eggs on car hoods and steaks in the cabins. Crazy stuff!

129C?

[bmimatt]

"Iranian City Soars To Record 129C Degrees" Does the C stand for Celsius or just a random character, to make things look cool?

Re:129C?

[wvmarle]

I'd say it rather makes it look HOT!

Lol pls update title

[Anonymous Coward]

From "129C Degrees" to 129F or 54C or 54 degrees...

NEAR hottest on Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

So, it has actually been hotter before, recently? When will this cooling trend stop?

That's why they call it Iran

[JoeyRox]

As in "I Ran away from that country to get away from the heat".

a dose of reality

[ooloorie]

Recorded high temperatures in Ahvaz in July are 129.2F, so this isn't the highest on record even for that city. It's a record for June, but, hey, it's the end of June. Ahvaz also holds the record as the "world's most air-polluted city". Incidentally, they do get snow in the winter. What a place!

Re:a dose of reality

[Dunbal]

If this cooling trend continues we should be seeing absolute zero temperatures within 50 years! Quick, tax all ice cubes!

Re:a dose of reality

[rahvin112]

That isn't even the hottest temperature on earth, death valley which is 300' below sea level has always had the highest temperature record for earth.

The hottest air temperature ever recorded in Death Valley was 134 F (56.7 C) on July 10, 1913, at Furnace Creek, which is the hottest atmospheric temperature ever recorded on earth. During the heat wave that peaked with that record, five consecutive days reached 129 F (54 C) or above.

Re:a dose of reality

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't even the hottest temperature on earth, death valley which is 300' below sea level has always had the highest temperature record for earth.

Logically, that's not possible, since Death Valley hasn't always existed. Historically, it is actually untrue. There was a period where a site in Libya had the record, with a temperature of 58 C (136 F). You can still find it in numerous copies of the Guinness Book of World Records. However, it was disqualified after research indicated it was flawed.

The hottest air temperature ever recorded in Death Valley was 134 F (56.7 C) on July 10, 1913, at Furnace Creek, which is the hottest atmospheric temperature ever recorded on earth. During the heat wave that peaked with that record, five consecutive days reached 129 F (54 C) or above.

Unfortunately, that's also a bit doubtful, as the temperature is believed to be 4-5 degrees lower.

Sorry, but it seems you and oolorie are a bit mistaken.

Re:a dose of reality

[Anonymous Coward]

Recorded high temperatures in Ahvaz in July are 129.2F, so this isn't the highest on record even for that city. It's a record for June, but, hey, it's the end of June.

Actually, the temperature in Ahvaz yesterday hit that mark too. It's a tie. But the other temperatures, well, you may have missed the "reliable" part as the previous records, while not entirely discredited, are often not considered reliable. So Iran may have a lower record official temperature, but somebody at Wikipedia didn't get the note, and thus...

Ahvaz also holds the record as the "world's most air-polluted city".

No, you need to learn to read better. It holds the record for 2011. Not all time. There's no comparative analysis there.

Incidentally, they do get snow in the winter. What a place!

Your source says otherwise. I suggest you find a source for your "fact" and edit Wikipedia.

Re:a dose of reality

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Death Valley has only had the highest recorded temperature since 2012 when some Americans got El Azizia, Libya disqualified. And there are even higher temperatures, but those are even more historical and don't count. Especially when people are obsessed with "owning" the highest temperature. *shrug*

Regardless, your statement that "[Death Valley] has always had the highest temperature record for earth" is false on its face.

So hot...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can fry an egg on the sidewalk. 129 degrees Celsius is crazy hot.

And you know what else is hot right now?

The fucking Egg McMuffin, which can be found at your local McDonald's. Made with a freshly cracked, Grade A egg, every time you order, these babies are so delicious that you'll want to eat FIVE OF THEM! Our trained sandwich artisans are dedicated to their craft, and will deliver a delicious sandwich to your mouth in less time than it takes to make a paper airplane. A paper airplane that is carrying an Egg McMuffin directly into your mouth. McDonald's. Ba Da Ba Ba Bah, I'm Lovin' It!

Re:So hot...

[Anonymous Coward]

lol a macdonalds restaurant hasnt ever cracked an egg...

Re:So hot...

[Higaran]

That's not true, i sued to work at a McDonalds when I was 16. We would use real eggs for the McMuffins, as for the nice folded eggs that go on the biscuts, we would pour this stuff out of a carton it was supposed to be pasteurized whole eggs or Pewe as it as called.

Re:So hot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you sue to work there? Why not just fill out an application like everybody else?

Title, please?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, can you change the temperature in the title from C to F, please? It's confusing.

Hot, but not THAT hot!

[Anonymous Coward]

Iranian City Soars To Record 129C Degrees. 129C = 264.2F. No, I don't think it was THAT hot!

Editorial failure; why no means to correct?

[pz]

We've seen over and over again that the staff editors on Slashdot are not as technically versed as many of the readership. We see factual errors that, given sometimes only the tiniest bit of engineering or scientific background should have been readily caught. The current headline is an example. It is not possible in the current age that natural air temperatures would get above 100 C. Not anywhere near that. It's an absurdity to think that a maximum new temperature of 129C had been recorded. It shows ignorance or ineptitude. So, the editors aren't as sharp in many cases as the readers. Let's accept that as an empirically demonstrated fact.

We have wonderful tools to provide feedback on posts through the moderation and meta-moderation system. They work to keep the discussion largely civil and interesting.

But why don't we have an ability to submit timely corrections to egregious errors, be they typographic, grammatical, or factual, in the headline and summary? Why? It wasn't necessary back in the Rob Malda days because the editors were sharp, and the focus of the site much narrower. Now, as Slashdot approaches a combination of Popular Mechanics, Byte, Wired and Computer Shopper, the readership needs a means to provide meanningful corrective feedback that can be acted upon in a timely fashion. Moderation of the editors, as it were.

Please, Slashdot, give us those tools!

Re:Editorial failure; why no means to correct?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just more of that global warming fear mongering. :)

Honestly though, 129C would get my fucking attention, that's for sure!

Re:Editorial failure; why no means to correct?

[Anonymous Coward]

We've seen over and over again that the staff editors on Slashdot are not as technically versed as many of the readership. We see factual errors that, given sometimes only the tiniest bit of engineering or scientific background should have been readily caught. The current headline is an example. It is not possible in the current age that natural air temperatures would get above 100 C. Not anywhere near that. It's an absurdity to think that a maximum new temperature of 129C had been recorded. It shows ignorance or ineptitude.

It shows adherence to a long standing tradition of successfully trolling readers over and over again to click more and leave messages they know ahead of time people will write. It makes the little counter on their dashboard run faster.

It's "F," not "C"

[Anonymous Coward]

...

Re:It's "F," not "C"

[ir0nHat]

My Grandmother used to tell me all the time. "You should not 'F' what you can't 'C', o 'K'. She had such hot sayings.

Re:It's "F," not "C"

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha. What's her number?

Wow, I guess the Middle East really is hell

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, Iran is, at least.

negarfilm

[Anonymous Coward]

tnx for you negarfilm

Re:point five past lightspeed, AT LEAST

[sheramil]

For a brief moment I thought... "What is 129 times the speed of light, and how did that city in Iran reach it?"

129C

[drew_92123]

Typo -or- click bait? ;-)

F not C

[Anonymous Coward]

try 129F not Centigrade. No wonder we have so much fake news. No one double checks their work.

Re:point five past lightspeed, AT LEAST

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, it's a capital C.

Death Valley is hotter, why is this an article?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://weather.com/news/news/death-valley-new-world-temperature-record-20120913

"Death Valley, Calif. now holds the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded in the world with a maximum temperature of 134 degrees."

um, check your headline

[Anonymous Coward]

stupid is as stupid does

Scare-quotes for Celsius?

[GNious]

Why is the figure in Celsius given with scare-quotes? Both Iran and France, and 95% of the world, uses Celsius - not really anything scary about it.

Re:Scare-quotes for Celsius?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe a grocer was involved in writing the article? They'll put quotes and apostrophes on most anything...

Climate change is a hoax?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, since climate change is a hoax, they must be using the wrong methods to read temperature... Maybe is really -20 degrees....

Iraq temperatures regularly higher than that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Talking to buddies of mine who were in Desert Storm, they regularly experienced temperatures in the 130. Not sure why this is getting any press at all. Seems like a lot of fear mongering to me.

No celsius is correct

[aepervius]

When publishing in s cie nce journal i wouod expect kelvin, in normal news celsius is perfectly acceptable, and i would say fahrenheit too, as long a s the writer is not an idiot and precise the measurement unit . And yes celsius is the modern acceptable unit used by the crushing majority of human on earth.

Context

[sjbe]

Who writes temperatures as "129 degrees"?

Pretty much anyone/everyone in the US. Fahrenheit units are assumed here, especially in contexts were Celsius would make little sense.

This is a science and tech site, at very least, if you're going to use outmoded, outdated, antiquated, anachronistic, non-standard, and mostly unused units of measurement, indicate the unit.

No this is a discussion/debate site which historically (less lately) has focused on tech. It also is based in the US and has a predominantly US based readership and I assure you nobody in the US was confused at all. I've be very happy to switch to metric but if someone gives an air temperature of 129 degrees I'm fairly comfortable assuming they aren't talking about Celsius units.

The US isn't going to go metric any time soon. Get over it. Yes it's a good idea and Celsius would be better but so are lots of things that won't happen.

Flaimbate!

[blindseer]

Must be that global cooling!

Okay, I got that out of my system. Move along, nothing to see here.

False

[sjbe]

Who cares if it is "livable"?

People who want to live.

It regularly gets 110F here in summer and people still live. In Canada it often gets below 0F and people live.

You seem to have missed the point. 110F is survivable. 110C is not.

The measurements 0F to 100F were based upon what at the time were perceived as the min and max temperatures the weather reached in Europe. That's not very scientific, even if it is meaningful.

That's not true at all. "The lower defining point, 0 F, was established as the temperature of a solution of brine made from equal parts of ice and salt. Further limits were established as the melting point of ice (32 F) and his best estimate of the average human body temperature (96 F, about 2.6 F less than the modern value due to a later redefinition of the scale). The scale is now usually defined by two fixed points: the temperature at which water freezes into ice is defined as 32 F, and the boiling point of water is defined to be 212 F, a 180 F separation, as defined at sea level and standard atmospheric pressure."

You can perceive the difference just about in 1C change. You can't perceive the difference in 1F change. A Centigrade is more meaningful to a human being as far as perception goes.

Again not true at all. I absolutely can perceive a 1F difference in temperature and so can most people. In fact we can detect temperature difference much smaller than 1F in many circumstances. If anything centigrade is a bit too coarse grained in that regard.

Re:False

[Oswald McWeany]

You should check your sources. The first said there are several accounts as to how he set up the scale and lists that one above as one of them.

We don't even know for sure HOW or WHY he set up his measurement system- and it hasn't even remained the same over time. What is 40F today is not the same as what is 40F when he first set it up.

As for perceiving temperatures. Saying it's going to be 77F outside today vs 78F outside is absolutely meaningless. You're not going to be able to tell the difference. It will feel the same. Even 77F to 80F is almost meaningless. Your linked article (again a bad one) says people can't notice if temperature changes less than .5C in 30mins (so certainly couldn't 1F).

Perhaps yes, in a controlled room when exposed to slightly different temperatures immediately one after the other you might be able to tell one from the other, but 77F is the same as 78F as far as your perceptions would be concerned.

It doesn't matter until upper midwest gets hot

[postmortem]

Because that's who decides who's going to be US president, and consequently person who can do the most about the global warming

Re:It doesn't matter until upper midwest gets hot

[djinn6]

Both Texas and Florida are heading towards the Democrats and they'll both be feeling the heat. Once they're blue the midwest won't matter anymore.

Soooo let me just say it.... buuuuuut

[Anonymous Coward]

Its getting hot in here; so take off all your clothes....

It's not the heat but

[Eyezen]

the humidity as the saying goes. Looked like the avg humidity in Ahvaz yesterday was 22%. The southeast and midwest routinely see 80-90% this time of year. That's when it gets uncomfortable.

We should support Climate Change then!

[zifn4b]

As an anti-terrorism measure! ;)

Fake news...

[slew]

The record is currently 134 degrees F from July 10, 1913, in Death Valley...
But that doesn't fit the narrative of "modern AGW times"...

Even in more modern times, back in 2013, Death Valley reached 53.9C (besting this latest temperature in Ahvaz by 0.2C)... Of course back in 2013, we weren't as modern as we are today...

Anything for click-bait these days, right?

Re:Fake news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for Correcting The Record. I'm with slew.

Re:Fake news...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know we don't RTFA here, but you could at least read the summary. The temperature recorded was 129.2 F, or 0.2 F hotter than the highest in Death Valley according to your link.

But by all means, don't let little things like accuracy or facts get in the way of your political conspiracy theories.

Re:Fake news...

[Anonymous Coward]

The 134 reading was probably incorrect.

https://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/an-investigation-of-death-valleys-134f-world-temperature-record.html

Re:Fake news...

[bongey]

Officially the record stands,sound,reliable direct measurements, take precedence over any statistical measurements or models. Note they didn't move anything around after the hot week or change anything at all. More likely a climate change scientists cannot possibly believe that the record was set in 1913.

Re:Fake news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Officially the record stands,sound,reliable direct measurements, take precedence over any statistical measurements or models. Note they didn't move anything around after the hot week or change anything at all. More likely a climate change scientists cannot possibly believe that the record was set in 1913.

Nope. They're just quite aware that in 1913, you can't quite trust the person reading the thermometer to do the job properly.

I suppose it's important for you to believe some other purpose to it, but it is simply a doubtful record.

junk

[Anonymous Coward]

I have friends in Saudi who tell about 135 at high humidity. This doesn't impress me much.

Duh!

[s.petry]

Look, I could get confusion if we were below a threshold, say -10 to 35, but if the number is high enough it becomes obvious that the measurement is in Fahrenheit. Even with those numbers, it's pretty obvious that if Arizona is 36 during the day in July.. it's frigging Celsius!

Here I came to see if anyone had cracked any good jokes about Iran and Hell, yet find idiotic statements like yours modded insightful.. *sigh*

It has been hotter here

[dubner]

> Weather Underground's website . . .

Yeah, well there's the problem. Earlier this month Weather Underground called it 160F here in the northwest USA.

http://imgur.com/h4wHnAa

Fortunately, with the breeze and low humidity, it only felt like 150F.

Re:It has been hotter here

[deadwill69]

Looks like somebodies weather station freaked out: Love that 754.9 F heat index. How did you survive? That's steak grilling temps there!

10:56 AM 159.8 F 754.9 F 150.8 F 80% 29.96 in 10.0 mi NNE 5.8 mph - N/A Scattered Clouds

Re:It has been hotter here

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with WU is that just regular people run the stations. They often install them wrong and don't maintain them at all. There are a few around me that quite obviously have the temperature sensor in the sun and they always read 10 to 30 degrees higher than the actual temperature.

Re:It has been hotter here

[dubner]

True enough, but this data is not from a home weather station; it's from the nearest airport. Note the airplane icon and the word "McNary" (McNary Field, Salem, OR).

W.U. is just plain lousy.

Intelligent?

[s.petry]

A base 12 system is more complex than a base 10 system. Fahrenheit and Kelvin both have historical and scientific reasons for maintenance. So what you are really asking is that we dumb it down for you.

I believe you meant something other than insulting people, but don't quite get that one either.

Good place for it

[cmdr_klarg]

As in not where I am. :)

Units

[dindi]

I though modern measurements were in Celsius

Tom Friedman said it well

[donbudge]

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/0... (nytimes, may be pay-walled) All the people in this region are playing with fire. While they’re fighting over who is caliph, who is the rightful heir to the Prophet Muhammad from the seventh century — Sunnis or Shiites — and to whom God really gave the holy land, Mother Nature is not sitting idle. She doesn’t do politics — only physics, biology and chemistry. And if they add up the wrong way, she will take them all down. The only “ism” that will save them is not Shiism or Islamism but “environmentalism” — understanding that there is no Shiite air or Sunni water, there is just “the commons,” their shared ecosystems, and unless they cooperate to manage and preserve them (and we all address climate change), vast eco-devastation awaits them all.

Mar-a-Lago is Hotter

[coinreturn]

They've got the best temperatures - the highest. Nobody has higher temperatures.

It's a hoax, I tell you

[ElBeano]

Fricken Chinese

It's not celsius, doesn't mean it's not a lot

[behrooz0az]

To people saying water doesn't boil. Actually, water does boil in the streets. the 53 celsius is temperature without presense of sunlight. in sunlight we're talking well above 90 degrees celsius, wish I was joking but I'm not.
If you just sit in a car without turning the AC on for half an hour the belt buckle can leave a mark on your arm for the rest of your life, talking 3rd degree burn here. The steering wheel can get stuck to your hand if you put your hand on it directly. my father's car has a LOT of his finger prints permanently molded into the plastic. You can cook omlets on the dashboard or on the roof.
If there is a fly still alive in that weather --this one is actually funny-- if it lands on a car or any other metalic surface, it can't take off again.
Only glass covered solar panels work, other types just melt. The wiring almost always melts too.
Car batteries die a lot.
Plastic bottles, sprays, cans, jars and anything with a lid exploding is just normal. One time, After few hours of leaving the car in sunlight I found it covered with a fine white powder as if it was painted, after hours of thinking, finding small pieces of metal and recalling who has been in the car with what items we figured out it was a deodorant spray left in the car under a tissue box in the sleeve behind the driver seat.
You just can't have cds in the car. they fuse together like slices of butter melting.
We don't have cement buildingi or cement park chairs. They just turn to dust REALLY fast.
and to those saying fix it with water, there isn't even enough water to drink.

They might adapt

[rsilvergun]

but folks are still going to get heat stroke and die. I've read articles about folks in India working through the heat and getting kidney failure because they didn't drink enough. They couldn't stop working, needed the money...

Those kind of conditions are going to create widespread social unrest. Demagogues will take advantage of it and rise to power and start wars. Stuff like this is how you get WWIII.

53 C

[MichaelSmith]

Temperatures above 60 C are not unknown in outback Australia. Probably the same in Saudi Arabia.

Home town

[Anonymous Coward]

I was born there. The true joke was that someone bought a thermometer that was rated for 50c .. and it melted...

It is hot and humid there. Good ol times

Irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

You are used to F and that's all. C is better because it's an international standard. You are just being parochial here.

If you want me to pretend to convince you:

"I've covered this many times before. Celsius is the best unit for weather temperature because:

0C is freezing, 100C is for making a cup of tea.

0F is ... dunno ... don't use dumbarse obsolete measurements. Same for 100F. It's something arbitrary."

So there. Done.

WaPoo does it again

[MooseMiester]

134 degrees Fahrenheit

This summer has been a scorcher in many parts of the nation, but this sweat-inducing heat has nothing on the highest temperature ever recorded in the United States, the whopping 134 degrees Fahrenheit that sent the mercury soaring in Death Valley on July 10, 1913.

Before the climate change moneybaggers had even been born even! When CO2 levels were a FRACTION of what they allegedly are today...