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July 2, 2009

Temps expected to soar during holiday weekend

By Cristin Ross

cross@jacksonvilleprogress.com

Weather officials say this Independence Day weekend is bringing temperatures hot enough to fry an egg — and anything else unfortunate enough to be out in the direct sun.

Meteorologists are predicting seasonal humidity and a blistering July sun will all combine to produce actual temperatures as high as 110 degrees today and over the weekend.

“With all the heat and humidity one would think thunderstorms would readily form, but that doesn’t always happen,” AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist John Kocet stated on the Web site. “If the atmosphere is warm all the way up, rising parcels of heated surface air lose buoyancy and fail to create storm clouds. Only when the air is slightly cooler aloft do thunderstorms build.”

According to the Web site, www.nws.noaa.gov, higher temperatures can certainly put the damper on the July 4 fun, if people aren’t careful.

“Heat kills by taxing the human body beyond its abilities,” the site states. “In a normal year, about 175 Americans succumb to the demands of summer heat. Only the cold of winter — not lightning, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, or earthquakes — takes a greater toll.”

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration records indicate from 1936 to 1975, nearly 20,000 people were killed in the U.S. by the effects of heat and solar radiation and more than 1,250 people died in the heat wave of 1980.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has devised the “heat index” (HI), or the “apparent temperature”). Given in degrees Farenheit, the heat index measures how hot it really feels when relative humidity (RH) is added to the actual air temperature.

“Since HI values were devised for shady, light wind conditions, exposure to full sunshine can increase HI values by up to 15 degrees,” the NWS site states. “Also stong winds, particularly with very hot, dry air, can be extremely hazardous.”

So how to you know when a little sun becomes too hot to handle?

Heat disorders all boil down to one cause — the victim has overexposed or over-exercised for his or her age and physical condition in the existing thermal environment. Studies have proved the severity of heat disorders increases with age — heat cramps in a teenager may be heat exhaustion in a 40-year-old and heat stroke in the elderly.

Symptoms of most heat-related illnesses are sunburn, heat cramps, heavy sweating, weakness, fainting, vomiting and even unconsciousness.

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