Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Is much of America really in the midst of a brutal heat wave? Nah! It’s really not as hot as you may think—or feel. So says radio talk show host and weather meister Rush Limbaugh. Ignore those news reports warning that the temperatures are soaring into the stratosphere. According to Rush, the mercury isn’t really rising as high
inside thermometers as reports claim.
Here’s what Rush had to say recently about what’s really going on weatherwise:
They’re playing games with us on this heat wave, again. Even Drudge. Drudge getting sucked in here. Going to be 116 in Washington. No, it’s not. It’s gonna be like 100, maybe 99. A heat index, manufactured by the government to tell you what it feels like when you add the humidity in there.
116. When’s the last time the heat index was reported as an actual temperature? It hasn’t been, but it looks like they’re trying to get away with doing that now. 116. Drudge is just linking to other people reporting. He’s not saying it, I don’t want to misunderstand, but he’s linking to stories which say 116 degrees in Washington. No!
It’s going to top out as 102, 103. It does this every year. We have this every year. There’s a heat dome over half the country, midwest is moving east. And it happens every summer. Every summer.
So, folks, you can ignore the dire warnings of extreme heat. Pay no mind to what anyone says about record temperatures that have been calculated according to the National Weather Service’s Heat Index. You can forget about the humidity! Don’t listen to people like James Samenow who wrote the following on a Washington Post blog:
Heat is the top weather related killer in the U.S. But there’s truth in the saying, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” The body cools itself at a slower rate when the humidity is high. For this reason, the heat index was devised, to provide a measure of how hot it actually feels – hence alternative names such as “apparent temperature,” “feels like temperature,” “real-feel temperature”(AccuWeather trademark), “humiture,” and in Canada, “humidex.”
The heat index results from a whole research area on weather and its effects on the human body, known as biometeorology. The index is grounded in established relationships describing the exchange of heat and moisture between the human body and the atmosphere.
Thankfully, Rush has been kind enough to provide us with some advice in case we do happen to feel the need to cool things down:
If we want to cool things off, please, Al Gore, schedule a global warming conference, wherever, in Washington! Go there. You want that 103, 116 to get normal? It will, within an hour of Gore announcing that he’s going! Another ten degrees off when he shows up. Plus hail, and rain, and maybe some high winds to really cool people off! That’s all that has to happen.
Rush is right. The heat index is manufactured—just like the Windchill Factor. According to the National Weather Service, the Windchill Temperature index (WCT) “uses advances in science, technology, and computer modeling to provide an accurate, understandable, and useful formula for calculating the dangers from winter winds and freezing temperatures.”
Oh, sure! Another government-manufactured weather index–one that tells us how cold we feel and not how cold it really is. I was dying to find out what Rush might have said about the Windchill Factor so I did a little investigating. Here’s an excerpt from his radio program that aired on February 5, 2007:
An hour ago, the wind chill factor in New York City was minus two. In Chicago, an hour ago, the wind chill factor was minus 19. An hour ago, the wind chill factor in Washington was minus one. In Philadelphia, an hour ago, the wind chill factor was minus eight. Make a note, ladies and gentlemen: whenever it’s hot outside, we get news story after news story about global warming. Now that it is freezing, record cold — it’s so cold in Chicago, they delayed the Nielsens! They delayed the Nielsen report on how many Chicagoans watched the Super Bowl last night. Now that it’s cold, record cold out there, we will not see any news stories on the major networks questioning global warming. There is one in the LA Times today: “Game Over on Global Warming?” with a question mark after it. It has some interesting statistics in it, but not one story — not one story — will we see about global warming maybe not being real, in the middle of record cold.
So there you have it from weather wiseman Rush: The National Weather Service’s Heat Index should be ignored–but not the Windchill Factor. That’s all you need to know. Need I say more?
A Rush Heat Index Rhyme
The reported temperatures? They ain’t real!
Please ignore how hot you feel.
The heat index was manufactured, you see
By a liberal government entity.
Two “heat-related” song videos for your viewing pleasure:
SOURCES
Limbaugh: The Killer 116° Heat Index Is ‘Manufactured By The Government’ (Think Progress)
It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Stupidity: Limbaugh Calls Heat Index a Liberal Government Conspiracy (Think Progress)
Denying Existence Of Record Heat Wave, Limbaugh Suggests The Heat Index Is A Government Conspiracy (Media Matters)
Record Cold Raises No Questions; Polar Bear Photo a Fraud (Rush Limbaugh)
The origins of the heat index and why it’s important (Washington Post)
Is this heat wave special? (Washington Post)
*****
Clip Art Courtesy of Designed to a T
If you don’t like Rush Limbaugh’s views on the earth, how about the late George Carlin? The earth has survived millions of years being frozen, burned, flooded, subjected to drought and extreme heat, struck by meteors, and seen dinosaurs come and go. It survived before, during, and after and will be here long after we are gone. Humans are not that important to climate and the earth. Global warming is just a theory to make us feel more important than we are.
Tootie,
“Looks like Elaine missed the point. Rush was saying viz a viz the wind chill factor that if folks use the heat index to claim global warming they should also use the wind chill factor to claim global cooling (if they want to be consistent, which they never do want).”
Looks like Tootie missed the point. Leave it to you not to see Rush’s hypocrisy.
😉
*****
Bjorn Lomborg? Is he a climate scientist–or is he a political scientist?
“He points out that when powerful world leaders and really bright college students world-wide are asked to rank the gravest dangers facing mostly third-world countries they rank malnutrition, access to clean water, and communicable diseases at the top and [reluctantly] put global warming at the bottom.”
What does that prove?
Tootie, you’re getting very specific when you write “powerful world learders and really bright college students.”
Looks like Elaine missed the point. Rush was saying viz a viz the wind chill factor that if folks use the heat index to claim global warming they should also use the wind chill factor to claim global cooling (if they want to be consistent, which they never do want).
And it is global COOLING that would kill more people. So if you are concerned about people dying, pray for global warming since less people die from it than from cooling.
Naturally, left-wingers wish for the climate scenario which kills more people: global cooling. And these people would be mostly third world folks.
Bjorn Lomborg writes in his book “Cool It”:
“The first complete survey for the world was published in 2006, and what it shows us very clearly is that climate change will not cause massive disruptions or huge death tolls. Actually, the direct impact of climate change [warming] in 2050 will mean FEWER dead, and not by a small amount. In total, about 1.4 million people will be SAVED each year, due to more than 1.7 million fewer deaths from cardiovascular disease and 365,000 more deaths from respiratory disorders. This holds true for the United States and Europe (each with about 175,000 save), as for the rest of the industrialized world. But even China and India will see more than 720,000 saved each year, with deaths avoided outweighing extra deaths nine to one.” page 38 My emphasis.
He points out that when powerful world leaders and really bright college students world-wide are asked to rank the gravest dangers facing mostly third-world countries they rank malnutrition, access to clean water, and communicable diseases at the top and [reluctantly] put global warming at the bottom.
Global warming would actually help feed the people (expanded growing season and more CO2 for plants to consume) who today suffer from malnutrition. So leftists find themselves in the position of advocating that the planet should cool off which would produce less food and cause mass starvation (especially in the third-world).
Always the humanitarians those lefties. Always mass killers.
mr.ed,
My house doesn’t have central air conditioning. Does yours? We have an air conditioner in our bedroom so we can sleep at night.
About our soldiers on patrol in Iraq? I say bring them all home!
114 degrees in Phoenix with 9 percent humidity is still plenty hot, “dry heat” or no. Grab a black steering wheel for a memorable moment.
Now, think of the soldiers on patrol in Iraq in 130 “dry” degrees, loaded with 90 pounds of equipment, and don’t be such a pussy, cooling it in the A/C.
Blouise,
100 degrees is pretty damn hot for a town on the seacoast too. No ocean breezes cooling things off around here the past few days.
“And get your feet off the coffee table.” … they stink.
(Yep, I’m cranky too)
Elaine M.,
We sent you that heat as a gift ’cause misery loves company … earlier this week it was over 100 degrees which is pretty damn hot for a town on the shores of Lake Erie.
rafflaw,
It’s been beastly here. I would welcome the rain.
Anon, here’s the deal: We are all guests here. The prof likes Elaine’s writing and has asked her to be a guest blogger as he has asked other regulars here to be guest bloggers. It’s his house. The rest of us don’t get a say. We sure don’t get to bitch and moan and be rude to the guest bloggers because they don’t meet our egocentric needs. Don’t be a bad guest. And get your feet off the coffee table.
Elaine,
We got our relief last night and yesterday with over 8inches of rain and we may get more tonight. I wish we had the 95 degrees back!
Blouise,
Anon would be a lot more cranky here in Massachusetts. Eighty-three degrees sounds pretty cool to me. We’re expecting a little relief tomorrow with temperatures plummeting down to the mid-eighties.
😉
anon sounds a mite cranky … if he were residing in Cleveland, Ohio today, he’d be a lot cranky … humidity is 92 per cent and 83 degrees feels like 91. I’d give anything for a bit of windchill.
Elaine – seems anon just wants to demonstrate that he is an ass that can be more dickish than kdreadful or gi-gi. Since he as completely achieved this lofty goal its simplest to just ignore him.
Ignorance and arrogance is such an unappetizing combination and anon has it in spades.