How do you know when it's hot? When I had a convertible, I usually left the top down when I drove and the temps were under 105. In my current car, I usually leave the windows down when the temps are 100 or less...assuming humidity is under 25. My favorite judge of heat is in the garage. I keep normal garage chemicals in my garage like most people. My garage is my laundry room too. (The drier really works well when humidity is in the single digits) On really hot days, the containers of chemicals can't hold the expanding fluids. I was in the garage last week working on a project and I had a stack of cans where the bottom can blew it's top sending the other cans flying. Also last week, I heard two cartons of fabric softener blow up. One split down a corner in a violent eruption and another blew a corner out of the top in a big hiss. It is not unusual to find traces of a tube, can, or carton failure long after the fact and I'm sure I will find some later. This is the first year where I saw and/or heard 3 different container failures.

JMT, my attempt to give a serious answer to a pretty simple question:

If my nose is running in the morning when I get up, it means that someone set the thermostat at 75 the preceding evening.

When my feet hit the bathroom floor I can forecast a pretty accurate type of day it's gonna be even before I hit the shower.

When I open the door leading to my garage and I get hit with a blast of hot air, I can tell it's summer.

But the only real way I can tell how warm it is, is to take a look at the temperature reading on the dashboard of my Toyota Prius.

And it's always precisely correct because the guy on the radio must be reading it too.

One strange thing I have to mention .... For some darn reason, I never get uncomfortably hot in Las Vegas. From house to car to casino or just plain shopping around this town, there is always some form of A/C that keeps my body temp adjusted.

The one time I really felt uncomfortably warm occured in Laughlin when we had to walk across an uncovered parking lot in 116 degree heat. The "weather man" who was with us said that the heat coming off the tarmac was raising the temperature to 120 at the minimum.

And one time many years ago, we were walking down LV Blvd and it was so hot that the road had actually melted and sucked up my shoes. But back then I was young enough to get picked up and carried the rest of the way. (Never got those shoes back though.)

I think it's fun to hear other people's definition of when it becomes hot.

We've all heard the stories of "oh, but it' a dry heat" and the jokes that follow, such as "so is fire" or "so is sticking your head in an oven". Someone told me the other day when it was hot and windy that it felt like god was chasing people around with a blow drier.

God? are you sure it wasn't the Devil?

As much as I love Las Vegas, I have a very hard time dealing with the dry heat. Maybe it's because I grew up where it was always hot and humid in the summer. I have no problem with humidity and actually enjoy sweating (yes, I do!).

But in Vegas, I feel like a prune. I've played tennis there in the past (even in the summer) and it's so odd not to sweat that much even though I'm running and it's hot. I just can't get used to it.

BTW - Chicago has had an incredibly cool summer. I think we've only had 2 days in the 90's and the weather has just been glorious!

It's not that dry a heat any more, Mike. All the building in the last 5 years or so has changed that - I think it was running about 15% humidity while I was there. That's still low compared to my home town, we run closer to 30% since we're next to 1000 miles of delta waterways, but I was comfortable even though the temps were about 105-108 during my trip.

Daisy is right that the summer humidity goes double digit in the monsoon season. That gets uncomfortable for most locals. A rare interesting effect of the monsoon season happens this weekend when the temps drop. We will set records today and maybe all weekend for high temps being as low as ever. The lowest high temp for today is 92 and that record might be broken today. Back to 100+ and near normal 103 Monday.

Well today in my home town Humidity was above 90%. We dream of 15% humidity in the summer! Today was one of those days when you drink the air, not breath it!