That Was the End of Matt

Matt Rose points to sign of ambient blood temperature.

G o o d H o t B l o g W e e k

Paris:– Wednesday, 19. July:– In the olden days when Dr. Fahrenheit and Dr. Celsius were designing our thermometres they had to designate the scale, decide what would be freezing and what would be cooking. When water curdles, that's zero said Dr. Celsius. No, Dr. Fahrenheit said, it's 32 degrees. That's because a degree is 5/9ths of a kelvin.

They didn't live in the same town or at exactly the same time, but close enough. They agreed that –40 would be the same in both C and F. Another standard to fix on was blood, but Celsius got there first. He reckoned Dr. Wunderlich's research made it 37 degrees so Fahrenheit did his 5/9ths thing and came up with 98.6. Apparently it is not so precise, so it is seldom exactly either.

When I ventured out earlier today I had no idea of the temperature until I saw the pharmacy sign with starving artist Matt Rose standing under it. I took the historic photo and then joined him, and only then did he look up and see the 37° C. And that was the end of Matt.

As historic as the weather is today it is no match for the temperature in Paris, Texas where they were expecting to have 105 F this afternoon. Yahoo France predicted 34 for Paris today, the New York Times put forward 89 for the City and the LA Times guessed 79 for Los Angeles. If Yahoo's number was right, the lowest humidity was in Paris this afternoon and I guess it could have been true if you were sitting still and letting the 29 kph breeze from the southeast cool you off. It was like being wrapped in a hot fuzzy blanket.

For Thursday the outlook calls for mainly sunny and 32 degrees, but maybe with the beginning of summer storms. These will really be happening on Friday, knocking the heat down to 30 degrees, but according to experts it will be sunny again on Sunday, and as warm as necessary for the first weekend of Paris–Plages.

Hot terrace of this hot café on a hot night.

Hot Soul, Hot Night

Tuesday, 18. July:– I kind of doubt it got as hot as 36 degrees today. In the middle of the afternoon the best it could do showed on the pharmacy signs as 32.5 and 33 degrees. Was it my imagination or was this hotter than the 31 degrees we had recently, like on Saturday?

Meanwhile out in Hollywood where Alan Pavlik sits in his crib JustAboveSunset he says they had a cooking Bastille Day party on Sunday next door to La Brea tar pit that wasn't a big success on account of the heat and the smell – so Los Angeles, so unlike frites! – then today he sends a "What's this?" in the form of a graphic of the weather in LA, New York and Paris.

32 degrees going on 36 in the shade.

That's right folks! I didn't have to risk my life going down Daguerre to check out the pharmacy signs after all. The graphic says it's 96 and sunny here today, but only 94 in New York and merely 93 and thunderstormy in Los Angeles. And the forecast shows 98 for here tomorrow.

So even though it is my day off – means I don't have to get dressed – I did watch tonight's TV–weather news because this is a hot story. Isabelle said we have this huge anticyclone which is going to give us 36 degrees on Wednesday, but the true blue morning skies are going to turn clouy in the afternoon – which maybe means the humidity is going to increase from the fairly dry 21% we might have had today. And the air quality is getting worse, to match the overnight Alert Orange.