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
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)
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Clip Art Courtesy of Designed to a T