But It's a Dry Heat!

I live in the desert and the majority of my family lives in the East and Midwest and every summer we squabble over who has the worst summer weather. The non-desert dwellers argue that even though the temperatures are higher where I live, it's a dry heat, and doesn't begin to compare with the sticky combo of heat and humidity that they must endure. I reply that if they were to turn their ovens on and stick their heads in for oh, say half an hour, they might get an idea of how miserable our dry heat can be.

But last week, I was finally vindicated in my assertion that summers in the southwest are hotter, and sweatier, by of all people, the makers of Old Spice deodorant. These folks recently did a survey ranking the top 100 sweatiest cities in America and guess what? Phoenix was number 1, and Tucson, where I live was number 4! The cities my family members live in were way down on the list at 48,60,66 and 72.

While it is true that the Midwest and Eastern summers are very humid, they are also, in good years, very lush and verdant. There are lots of trees, grass, gardens and lakes. They conjure up images of lying in a hammock with an icy cold lemonade, rowing out onto a lake in a canoe, and chasing fireflies at dusk. Just take a look at those LL Bean catalogs. The models are wearing sweaters for crying out loud!

Summers in the desert, however, are not conducive to outdoor activity between 10am and 7pm unless there is a swimming pool involved. We desert dwellers scurry from our air-conditioned homes to our air-conditioned cars and into our air-conditioned offices, movie theaters, and malls.

This is not to say that we don't have any fun. We have the summer monsoons to look forward to. Sometime around early to middle July our hot winds shift to a southerly direction colliding with moisture flowing in from the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico producing dramatic thunderstorms. Dry washes can turn into rushing rivers in a matter of minutes and the lightening puts on a spectacular show until it knocks out your power, and you're A/C. But we look forward to the temporary cooling relif that they bring, not to mention their contribution to our rapidly sinking water tables.

Yes, I know, the trade off is being able to call our relatives in the middle of winter and tell them how we are sitting on the patio enjoying a cocktail in lovely 70 degree weather and they are shoveling snow and freezing their butts off. That's the reason most of us came here. So we will pop open another cerveza and jump into the pool while we watch the thunderheads build up over the mountains.