Yes, Virginia: there IS a weatherman in Arizona.
Actually, quite a few of them. Arizona has three (at least) climate zones: low (hot hot hot!) desert, plateau (temperate in summer, cool enough for maybe some light snow in the winter), and mountain (pleasant in the summer and colder than a by-god in the winter, festooned by the occasional blizzard). Lovely Phoenix is, as you no doubt have guessed by now, in the accursed low desert, Death Valley-like in summertime.
And yea verily, it has been hotter than the Hubs here, reaching figures above 112 off and on. That’s for June and July.
Come August, come the so-called “monsoon,” a rainy season caused by a shift in prevailing winds that blows humid, hot air up from the Gulf of Mexico and gives birth to towering thunderheads and violent local rainstorms. Just now, for example, it’s 8 p.m. Outdoor temp is 98°; humidity a mere 15%. Rain not predicted, at least not for this evening, despite thunderheads all around the Valley’s perimeter.
I’ve been letting the AC keep it at around 78 inside the house. Apparently that’s a bit too balmy: just got a “balmy” bill from the power company: $345.71.
Lovely.
I’ll probably have to draw that down from Fidelity, since the checking account is already running low, what with the exorbitant gasoline bills. Pisseth me offeth. It’s 81 in the master bedroom. A breezy 79 in the middle (guest) bedroom, which is directly under the air conditioning unit and so gets air fresh out of the fridge.
If I had any sense, I’d decamp to the bed in there. But not only do I not have any sense, but the dog and I do not fit well on a single twin bed. So far I haven’t accidentally kicked her off in my sleep, but that’s an imminent hazard.
Turn the ceiling fan to “shamal,” and you get a nice little breeze in here…or, some might say, a cyclone. Not very restful, though it does create the illusion of a slightly cooler temperature.
Hm. Speaking of shamals, in Dhahran, just up the road from where we used to live on the /s/ lovely Persian Gulf, it’s 6 a.m. just now: 94 degrees out of doors; 33% humidity. Ah, what a garden spot! Makes Arizona look like a temperate paradise.
Which it is, most of the time. Dhahran is not, most of the time.