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Pat Shingleton: "Weird Heat and Super Cool"

8 years 2 months 2 weeks ago Wednesday, July 20 2016 Jul 20, 2016 July 20, 2016 4:15 AM July 20, 2016 in Pat Shingleton Column
By: Pat Shingleton:

With 11 days left in the month and 63 days remaining in the summer season, few few reviews of weather occurrences. In Portugal on July 6, 1949, meteorological observers reported a temperature increase from 100 to 158 degrees in two minutes.  On June 15, 1960 at Lake Whitney, Texas, the temperature soared to 140 degrees in three minutes with 100 mph winds. This rapid temperature rise toasted a nearby cotton field and fired-up car radiators to the boiling point. As we are accustomed to afternoon-early evening thunderstorms, temperature bursts elsewhere traditionally form after sunset and are associated with thunderstorms that cut off warm, moist air and usually collapse the storm.  Rain on the topside of the thunderhead sinks into cooler, drier air, compressing it and bopping it to the ground as a hot wind. This dynamic creates 100 m.p.h. air blasts. I noted this in other columns and the irony of July weather and an invention has provided needed relief. July 17th marked an anniversary of importance to all of us.  It’s the 114th anniversary of the invention of modern air conditioning. In the 1900s, a Brooklyn printing plant was the first building in the world to be air conditioned by Dr. Willis Haviland Carrier. Some of the older Baton Rouge homes may still house a large attic fan that prior to air conditioning was used to move air from room to room. Carrier’s cooling plant divided the air into two streams, one heated and the other cooled.  In each room, these two air streams are proportionately mixed to produce a desired temperature

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