Thoughts on heat, humidity, droughts and our future

I read today that a "heat dome" has settled in over the central US, covering about 1 million square miles. Some sort of upper atmosphere high pressure system that is moving v e r y slowly...

A short video I found on line has a nice graphic showing how the large, powerful heat "dome" deflects all other weather systems that are moving across the country. This is what leaves us with these hot, humid - but without rain - conditions and no relief for days on end.

It sounds like the system will break by Monday, but in the meantime, those with air conditioning are surely running it, and those without are probably spending a lot of time at the public library (or other cool public place).

I was surprised to read that humans actually tolerate heat quite well, provided we are able to sweat and have plenty of fluids. But, another important factor is that the sweat has to be able to evaporate - it is the evaporation that has a cooling effect on our bodies.

Unfortunately, when the heat is accompanied by high humidity, the air has little capacity for additional water, so that sweat doesn't readily evaporate. That means one is left hot and sweaty, but feeling no cooler. ugh.

Humidity comes in several forms from a scientific standpoint, and each one is calculated a bit differently: absolute humidity, relative humidity and specific humidity are all used. You can read the Wikipedia article for a thorough explanation of each. For we lay-people, the one that has the most relevance is relative humidity. RH is a measure of the amount of water vapor in the air relative to the maximum amount of water vapor that the air could hold without actually starting to rain.

RH is the factor used to calculate the "heat index", or the temperature it feels like to us when the humidity is high. For instance, when the weatherperson says "the temperature will be 93 today, but it will feel like 105," he or she is talking about the heat index that is adjusted for the relative humidity.

While reading about this weather phenomenon, I came across a 2004 article with information from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The scientists had run some models to look at how weather systems are expected to shift as the climate changes due to global warming. Among their findings was that stationary high pressure domes that result in long-lasting heat waves will become more frequent over Europe and North America.

Some places, like Kansas and Nebraska, are predicting serious groundwater shortages this year as farmers are forced to irrigate crops that would otherwise wither and die from the lack of rain. An area can manage a drought year like this once in a while, but not several years in a row. China and Russia have suffered through record droughts in recent years, giving us some idea of what may be in store.

Seems about time we started figuring out a different system that will work with the available resources like water as well as the weather conditions that are coming. Not just in the US, but around the globe.

Too bad humidity doesn't water crops...

Another Reason to Buy Local Food!

As if we needed another reason to purchase our food from local sources, along comes the Great American Egg Recall of 2010!

Billions of eggs potentially tainted with Salmonella bacteria, and thousands of people sick as a result.

The photos of the factory egg "farms" are too awful for me to include here -- chickens packed in cages, stacked on top of one another in conditions that should be criminal. And why? Because Americans want cheap eggs. Lots of cheap eggs. At the rate of 150 (or more) eggs per person, per year, that adds up to nearly 50 billions eggs a year - and that's just the ones folks buy in cartons -- add in all the eggs that are used as an ingredient in the foods we buy, and we are looking at closer to 75 billion eggs consumed each year in the US!

At a price of about $1.00 per dozen, we are talking about at least $4 billion in egg sales each year.

There is an alternative, you know. Yep, more folks could buy their eggs from local farmers.

My husband and I pay $2.50 a dozen for eggs from a family near Harvard, IL. The eggs are fresh, delicious, and safe. The chickens that lay the eggs seem to live happy lives -- at least they appear content running around in the farmyard when I go there to pick up the eggs. And a bonus is that the yolks are a gorgeous shade of deep yellow, not the insipid pale yellow of factory eggs.

The family raises the chickens to sell them as, well, chickens, later after they are good and fat. But the chickens have this pesky habit of laying eggs until they are sent off to be butchered, so the family also collects and sells the eggs.

Fresh eggs have an advantage that factory eggs lack -- they haven't been washed, so they still have the "bloom" intact on the surface of the egg shell. This "bloom" protects the otherwise porous surface of the egg, preventing bacteria from entering the egg.

As a result, fresh eggs can be stored at room temperature, and in Europe, that is how they are sold and kept.

Factory eggs in the US are washed after being collected to remove any surface dirt and bacteria -- which is actually part of the reason for the Great Egg Recall of 2010 -- even trace amounts of bacteria can entered the washed eggs, and once inside, salmonella does not take much time to multiply into enough bacteria cells to make someone sick.

So, remember that next time you buy eggs at the grocery store. Ask around, I bet you can find a local farm that sells fresh eggs -- and I bet you'll agree that they are worth every penny!

What's a Scenic Road?

It may be safe to say that "scenic" is in the eye of the beholder. One person's scenic drive may be tedious to another who just wants to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, and is annoyed by the hills, slower speed limits, curves and trees close to the road.

I love driving through the county's gently rolling farm fields, but know people who think this area is too flat and the farm fields are b o r i n g.

Whether one likes scenic vistas of farmfields, or curvy, hilly routes that cross through examples of the county's glacial remants (moraines, kettles, kames and outwash plains), there are many scenic driving experiences to be had in McHenry County.

For example, I think most any road through Bull Valley is scenic, with their windey turns and hills, plus the trees overhanging the road and the farm fields stretching across the rolling hills.

O'Brien Road (that turns into Vander Karr Road as one heads east) is one of my favorites. It crosses through farm fields, past conservation land, and over the Nippersink Creek in the north part of the county between Alden and Richmond.

Thayer Road is another of my faves, going from Alden Road in the west to Greenwood Road in the east, passing farm fields, oak woods, and crossing at least one branch of the Nippersink Creek. I find the vistas across farm fields along Thayer amazing. The view is fairly flat and most trees are in the distance, so they don't block the view. I'd like to explore some of the isolated woodlands out there sometime -- they seem so remote and mysterious!

In the middle part of the county, there is Collins Road running west from Woodstock across the flat, outwash plain that sits between the Woodstock and Marengo moraines. The road starts out straight and level, with beautiful views of an agricultural landscape. As Collins hits the Marengo Ridge glacial moraine, the character of the road is transformed into a hilly, wooded route - the vistas are gone, and trees are the norm.

Then there is Fleming Road, a 2 1/2 mile route that runs from Country Club Road at its south end northwest to Route 120 east of Woodstock. In that short stretch of road, one passes visible examples of the county's "swell and swale" glacial terrain, complete with kettles and hills that were left behind when the Wisconsin glacier retreated 12,000 years ago. Additionally, the road passes through perhaps the largest concentration of remnant oak woods in the county.

Scenic may be in the eyes of the beholder, but I'm sure glad for the scenery around McHenry County that I get to behold!