What's your weather currently?

[Roadgeekteen]

70s and sunny

[US 89]

There is still leftover mud and random debris on several streets from the floods on Sunday. That is unheard of in Salt Lake.

Drier air is now moving in, effectively shutting off storm chances for the next week. This has brought with it some wildfire smoke, along with much warmer temperatures expected tomorrow and Thursday when we might get close to 100 again. After that, it looks like we'll get a cold front near the end of this week which will be completely dry but should knock our temps back down into the 80s.

[jakeroot]

The monsoonal moisture rocking other bits of the west has led to some thunderstorms in the Seattle area. Big storm clouds off over the Cascades with plenty of lightning.

Overall, pretty muggy and hazy. Mid-80s. Not insanely uncomfortable (no direct sunlight), but not great either. It was looking like it might rain later this week but those chances seem to have diminished.

[Roadgeekteen]

70s with a chance of rain later today

[Roadgeekteen]

60s and cloudy

[Roadgeekteen]

79 and sunny in Portland Maine, where I am.

[Roadgeekteen]

Upper 80s and sunny

[Scott5114]

Not gonna lie, I'm kind of wishing for some sort of freak weather event to hit Massachusetts just so I can see it reflected in a 4-word post here.

"Upper 150s and brimstone"

[hotdogPi]

Not gonna lie, I'm kind of wishing for some sort of freak weather event to hit Massachusetts just so I can see it reflected in a 4-word post here.

"Upper 150s and brimstone"

We've had a very unusual summer, but in the other direction. Today is the first day that hit 90° in over three weeks (maybe – it might have topped out at 89), and the historical average is 84° on July 24, the hottest day of the year. Much of this is due to rain.

[Max Rockatansky]

Fresno had an AQI of about 200 when I went to run this morning.  The Dixie Fire started blowing south last night and really filled the air up with smoke.  The AQI is clearing but it is still 124. 

[Scott5114]

Not gonna lie, I'm kind of wishing for some sort of freak weather event to hit Massachusetts just so I can see it reflected in a 4-word post here.

"Upper 150s and brimstone"

We've had a very unusual summer, but in the other direction. Today is the first day that hit 90° in over three weeks (maybe – it might have topped out at 89), and the historical average is 84° on July 24, the hottest day of the year. Much of this is due to rain.

The same is true here. While we've had 100° temps elsewhere in the state, the OKC metro has yet to break 100 (which normally starts to happen in early July).

[Bruce]

A cool 65 degrees with overcast skies.

We finally broke our second-longest dry streak of 51 days, thanks to a little rainfall at Sea-Tac.

https://twitter.com/NWSSeattle/status/1423548786266152968

Next weekend, we're expecting yet another heat wave with temps above 90 and maybe into the 100s in the Seattle area.

[Max Rockatansky]

A cool 65 degrees with overcast skies.

We finally broke our second-longest dry streak of 51 days, thanks to a little rainfall at Sea-Tac.

https://twitter.com/NWSSeattle/status/1423548786266152968

Next weekend, we're expecting yet another heat wave with temps above 90 and maybe into the 100s in the Seattle area.

So expect dozens of OSHA calls from angry employees who think that employers legally have to provide them with air conditioning again?

[Bruce]

Excessive heat should really trigger some actual protections (or hazard pay). It's ridiculous to see people in non-adjusted climates having to work outdoors in the middle of the day when it's over 100.

[Scott5114]

Excessive heat should really trigger some actual protections (or hazard pay). It's ridiculous to see people in non-adjusted climates having to work outdoors in the middle of the day when it's over 100.

It sort of does–OSHA states that employers have "a duty to protect workers from recognized serious hazards in the workplace, including heat-related hazards", but it's kind of mushy as to at what point the heat becomes a "serious hazard" and what mitigating steps need to be taken. Obviously, it's going to differ depending on the type of job–a bank teller will have a lower tolerance for what amount of heat is reasonable to be exposed to on the job than a landscaper will.

I work in cannabis, so we're expected to work in temperatures in the low 80s with very high humidity. That's the optimum growing conditions for the plant, so it would be unreasonable to demand something cooler. Before that, I worked in a casino, and they would occasionally have A/C units in part of the facility go out during the summer months, when it was in the 90s—100s outside. In the most recent instance of this I can remember, they simply pulled all of the employees out of the affected area but left it open to customers. The expectation was if they didn't like the heat, they could just avoid that part of the building, but they weren't going to force an employee to endure it for hours at a time.

[Max Rockatansky]

What was enacted when the last heat wave hit Washington consisted of the following:

-  Earlier shifts in freight positions (overnight if possible).
-  Adherence to military black flag (for civilian personnel) rules on heat exhaustion.  From what I recall hardly any of our workplaces even hit 90F indoors.  None of our work staff is regularly outdoors aside from maybe a couple minutes a day.
-  Mandatory water breaks once an hour and additionally as requested. 
-  Access to fans and cooling areas. 
-  Employees with lingering medical conditions were allowed to take vacation and in some cases Admin pay (how that was determined at the HR level I'm not sure).

To my knowledge hazard pay was never considered at any point along the line.  The above protocols were considered satisfactory in the OSHA response letters.  Aside from warehouse workers none of our positions would likely be considered very physically taxing. 

[Roadgeekteen]

80s and partly cloudy

[kphoger]

What do people think happens in countries with little to no A/C but whose temps regularly top 90 or even 100?  Do they think all those folks just don't go to work?

[J N Winkler]

What do people think happens in countries with little to no A/C but whose temps regularly top 90 or even 100?  Do they think all those folks just don't go to work?

It depends on the country, but it is pretty generally recognized that if the ambient temperature is high and there is no A/C, white-collar employee productivity will go down.  Thus, A/C is often provided in offices in countries where it is typically either absent in the home or confined to room units in bedrooms that are designed to allow people to get to sleep.

In the summer of 2010, I travelled in southern Europe, visiting Portugal, Spain, and Greece.  All three countries had bedroom A/C.  I was in Seville when temperatures hit 40° C, triggering heat advisories that were well-publicized on TV and in the newspapers.  I also visited a number of government offices in Spain in search of proyectos de construcción, and most of them had A/C, though there were some exceptions--e.g., the Junta de Andalucía put the anteproyecto for Lines 2, 3, and 4 of the Seville metro on public exhibition, which in practice meant going to an office in a historic building (complete with traditional Andalusian patio, but no A/C) in the city center to examine PDF files on a public-access computer.

The tempo of activity was generally higher in the morning when it was cooler.  Older buildings also tended to have thicker walls, which moderated indoor temperatures as it got hot outside.  On building exteriors in Andalusia, white paint with canary-yellow trim was about as common as white cars in Japan, and windows had true shutters (not false shutters secured permanently to the exterior trim as an architectural accent) that were closed in the afternoon to keep the sun out.  Public squares had mesh netting secured to poles and suspended overhead:  the weave was open enough to allow you to see the sky, but dense enough to cast a shadow on paving and prevent the sun heating it up.  It helped greatly that the heat was dry (southern Spain is in Köppen climate zone Csa, which is much less humid than Cfa, which covers nearly all of the Deep South in the US).

[kphoger]

Traveling regularly to the Chihuahuan Desert, in a country where A/C is exceedingly rare, I think it's laughable for people to suggest employees should get hazard pay, special shifts, mandatory breaks, etc.–just because the temperatures are elevated.

[Roadgeekteen]

70s and cloudy

[hotdogPi]

Traveling regularly to the Chihuahuan Desert, in a country where A/C is exceedingly rare, I think it's laughable for people to suggest employees should get hazard pay, special shifts, mandatory breaks, etc.–just because the temperatures are elevated.

1. Mexico isn't as developed as the US is. I would tell you to look at Phoenix, AZ's laws (or any of its suburbs) if not for points #2 and #3.
2. It's a dry heat in that area.
3. People are used to the heat in that area.

Note that if it's within walking distance of the ocean, which this place isn't, you can cool down by going over water (whether on a boat or a bridge), or to a lesser extent, on the beach.

[J N Winkler]

Traveling regularly to the Chihuahuan Desert, in a country where A/C is exceedingly rare, I think it's laughable for people to suggest employees should get hazard pay, special shifts, mandatory breaks, etc.–just because the temperatures are elevated.

I don't feel any impulse to laugh.  Heat is no joke, especially with wet-bulb temperatures reaching levels incompatible with human survival across more and more of the Earth's surface.  I think it is necessary to look at the tradeoffs across multiple dimensions--in terms of employee health, labor standards, productivity, architectural accommodation, etc.--before concluding that requests for heat-related measures amount to goldbricking.

[kphoger]

1. Mexico isn't as developed as the US is. I would tell you to look at Phoenix, AZ's laws (or any of its suburbs) if not for points #2 and #3.

I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.  Office workers still sit at their desks, gas workers still refill propane tanks, cooks still make meals, hardware store clerks still sell cement and nails and spades, station agents still sell bus tickets...  What does it matter how developed the nation is?  Work is work.

2. It's a dry heat in that area.

The area I specifically travel to, yes.  But somewhere like Tabasco? no.  Or go just a couple of hours to the east to the city of Monterrey (which is quite developed, by the way), and today's forecast calls for higher humidity than here in Wichita.  Not all of Mexico is a desert.  In fact, the highest humidity I regularly encounter is where we cross the border.

3. People are used to the heat in that area.

I still don't understand this one.  I'm imagining, for example, Saint Louis in the 1950s.  During the summer, when temps climbed high and the air was humid and still, did people get extra pay or special shifts?  I don't think they did.  Fast-forward to the 2020s, and why should they?

(For what it's worth, where we travel in Mexico also drops below freezing in the winter, and indoor temperatures can easily drop below 50 degrees overnight.  No hazard pay or special shifts required then either, although schools do sometimes cancel classes so students don't have to walk to and from home in the cold.)

I don't feel any impulse to laugh.  Heat is no joke, especially with wet-bulb temperatures reaching levels incompatible with human survival across more and more of the Earth's surface.  I think it is necessary to look at the tradeoffs across multiple dimensions--in terms of employee health, labor standards, productivity, architectural accommodation, etc.--before concluding that requests for heat-related measures amount to goldbricking.

Maybe it's that this is the first air-conditioned job I've ever had.  My first job was pushing shopping carts full-time in a parking lot near Chicago, rain or shine.  My next job was in an unconditioned warehouse, at which I worked for about five years.  Then I moved and had a temp job at a Circuit City distribution center in southern Illinois that had me and others loading 48-foot trailers box by box, nose to tail, floor to ceiling, in 90+ heat with high humidity;  sure, I had to drink plenty of water, and I was tired and sweat-soaked by the end of my shift, but the thought never once crossed my mind that I needed special treatment because of the heat.  My next job involved driving a delivery route in a truck with no A/C.  (One of my regular customers on that route was Crownline Boats, where employees painted boats indoors without A/C, 12 or more hours per day, and indoor temps in the summer were around 150.)  If I got back to base early enough, I then had to load trucks for the next day's routes too.

I highly doubt that any of my employers considered it necessary to somehow give me extra compensation for being hot at work.  And none of my co-workers ever mentioned that it might be necessary either.  Weather gets hot in the summer.  That's life.

[Max Rockatansky]

Traveling regularly to the Chihuahuan Desert, in a country where A/C is exceedingly rare, I think it's laughable for people to suggest employees should get hazard pay, special shifts, mandatory breaks, etc.–just because the temperatures are elevated.

1. Mexico isn't as developed as the US is. I would tell you to look at Phoenix, AZ's laws (or any of its suburbs) if not for points #2 and #3.
2. It's a dry heat in that area.
3. People are used to the heat in that area.

Note that if it's within walking distance of the ocean, which this place isn't, you can cool down by going over water (whether on a boat or a bridge), or to a lesser extent, on the beach.

Regarding Phoenix when I was a security manager for Sears our distribution center was air conditioned.  The Warehouse Workers were often in a warehouse that was regularly at 100F for much of the year.  The break room had an AC unit but otherwise we had everyone follow the same procedures I described above.  We never had an incident of an employee in heat stress in over five years I dealt with that place. 

To that end there was some degree of acclimation at play.  All the same, heat can affect anyone negatively despite acclimation.  The big thing is staying hydrated enough to stave off dehydration. Also, there was a huge amount of yard maintenance workers in the Phoenix Area that worked outside all year.