Newscasters interrupt your favorite commercials to comment on it. Radio announcers dedicate songs like Heat Wave to it. And the newspaper splashes it across the front page like it s never happened before. This forgetfulness may be caused by the heat, which does funny things to living creatures. As any farmer, 4-F er, or milk maid can tell you, excessive heat causes cows to stop giving milk and hens to quit laying eggs.
Meteorologists have the best job in the world.
We ve always been told it s not the heat, it s the humidity. Well, it turns out it s neither it s the heat index. The heat index is the wind chill factor s evil twin. Technically it s a measure of the contributions that high humidity makes with abnormally high temperatures in reducing the body s ability to cool itself. The heat index is a relatively new invention, having been developed by a committee of meteorologists under the direction of the Marquis de Sade.