Climate Refugees: Weather 101

One of the motivations for moving away from Tucson was to find to a new weather regime. 

The main thing we were escaping was heat, of course. Tucson can have six months of pretty hot weather, and four of those months can be very hot. Sorry Tucson, you have many things going for you and many things we miss, but summer heat is not one of them.

So how has Richmond Indiana compared to Tucson so far? 

Here are the results for the daytime high temperatures for the first five and a half weeks that we have been here. 

No day here had a higher temperature than Tucson! Many days have had much lower temperatures. Looking pretty good! 

But wait. Humidity has to be factored in, given its ability to make weather "feel like" it's hotter than the absolute temperature. So let's look at a graph of "feels like" temperatures, taking humidity into account.

"Feels like" temperatures have been closer in the two cities than absolute temperatures. Sometimes Richmond has "felt" hotter than Tucson, when the "fells like" temperatures in Tucson have been in the low to mid nineties, and humidity here has make temperatures in the low 90s feel like it's in the high 90s or over 100! 

But still, it has felt cooler here a lot of the time. Some days that were cloudy and rainy have been substantially cooler, even taking humidity into account. Direct sunlight has the ability to make you feel hotter than you would expect from the current temperature, and there has been less direct sunlight here. We feel the cooling effect of rain here more often. The combined June-July rainfall here has been around seven and a half inches compared to Tucson's less than one and a half. 

In short, there have been some days of oppressive heat here, but fewer than I expected. Generally it's been quite nice. 

Another aspect to "feels like" temperatures--one that's harder to quantify--is "what you are used to." On some early-morning dog walks we have worn light jackets. We climate refugees are used to much hotter morning temperatures. These mornings feel cool to us. But as we walk down the street, we watch locals come out of their houses in shorts and t-shirts. Apparently the weather we feel as cool, feels warm to them!

Dressed for a dog walk at the park.

Another determiner of "feels like" temperature is how strenuously you are exercising. Yesterday we were walking the dogs at a public park in pleasant--not cool, not hot--morning weather. We met an employee of the Richmond Parks and Recreation Department. He was planting small willow trees. I asked him about it and we had a great conversation about natural areas and wildlife in Richmond parks. More about that another time. But long story short, he was somewhat sweaty with exertion while we were having a cool, casual walk under shady trees. I bet the weather "felt" hotter to him! I have retired, for the most part, from hot sweaty work in the sun!

There's more to weather than temperature, humidity, and sun intensity--I'll let you know when we've had our first tornado warning! Also, there is more to our move than just weather. More about that in future posts, as we move on in the Cardinal Direction.