I'll take 110 over snowstorms (Phoenix, Tucson: gyms, pollution, health)

[RCR]

Originally Posted by artyst

what did i say that i liked to do indoors during the winter in wisconsin? i was suggesting that i liked bundling up whether inside or out. i did mention putting on one of my awesome winter coats, which i don't wear in the house! actually, i spent a lot of time outside in the winter! lol! (guess you didn't read all my posts) and i'm looking forward to spending a lot of cool winter time outside when i get to new york

Actually I did read your earlier post about sledding. That was why I thought it was funny when you talked about the feeted pjs and such.... You definitely won't have trouble with having cool winter time in NY, I grew up there. What part are you going to??

[Greatday]

Originally Posted by steve22

HA! That's priceless. I lived in Phoenix for 4 years, and let me tell you, heat disrupted my lifestyle PLENTY. I'm an active, outdoor-loving person, and sorry, but unrelenting 100+ degree heat EVERY SINGLE DAY for 6 FREAKIN MONTHS forcing me to confine myself to an air-conditioned cave for my health and safety was plenty disruptive.

Honestly? You can get used to it.

I have lived here all my life - I play golf in the middle of summer - there are times when I go for a Tee time mid day - usually I do not have any trouble getting on

We spend a lot of time at the lake

Or, go to northern AZ to hike, fish, camp

You learn to drink lots of water (not soda or beer) WATER

Long sleeve shirts (cotton) are much better than short sleeves

Hats

You are in

[RCR]

Originally Posted by steve22

HA! That's priceless. I lived in Phoenix for 4 years, and let me tell you, heat disrupted my lifestyle PLENTY. I'm an active, outdoor-loving person, and sorry, but unrelenting 100+ degree heat EVERY SINGLE DAY for 6 FREAKIN MONTHS forcing me to confine myself to an air-conditioned cave for my health and safety was plenty disruptive.

Just a slight exaggeration..... From the National Weather Service: "30 year average for number of days with maximum temperature at or above 100 degrees is 106." About 3.5 months. Still more than I would like but not quite 6 months.

[Magnum Mike]

Originally Posted by steve22

HA! That's priceless. I lived in Phoenix for 4 years, and let me tell you, heat disrupted my lifestyle PLENTY. I'm an active, outdoor-loving person, and sorry, but unrelenting 100+ degree heat EVERY SINGLE DAY for 6 FREAKIN MONTHS forcing me to confine myself to an air-conditioned cave for my health and safety was plenty disruptive.

.....

<sigh> You sound like a broken record Steve22. It all boils down to preference, and what your definition of what "Too Hot" is. To you it's the 6 months you mentioned, which might be a bit of an exaggeration on your part because you didn't like Arizona's desert climate. For me, and most other Arizonans, the period when it gets too hot to go outside and do outdoor activities, like hiking, is during the months of July and August, although I've hiked up North Mountain a couple of times in August, and it was a good work-out. And just because it gets to 110-115 degrees in the height of the summer, that doesn't necessarily mean most of us stay in our "air-conditioned caves", we use our air-conditioned cars to drive to air-conditioned everything here in the summer, so it's not disruptive.

But like I said, it's all a matter of preference, each has their own, and what you may call "Too hot", may not necessarily be the same what I call "too hot".

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by Greatday

Honestly? You can get used to it.

I have lived here all my life - I play golf in the middle of summer - there are times when I go for a Tee time mid day - usually I do not have any trouble getting on

We spend a lot of time at the lake

Or, go to northern AZ to hike, fish, camp

You learn to drink lots of water (not soda or beer) WATER

Long sleeve shirts (cotton) are much better than short sleeves

Hats

You are in

I believe what you are saying, and I agree completely, is that in this hot weather of ours people CHOOSE to be shut-ins. Like you, millions go about their business unimpeded by the heat. In a snowstorm and other natural "disasters" many have little choice about it. The roads are impassable, the power may be out, roads may be flooded, trees down or dangerous. It is probably best that people like some who have responded live in areas where they are forced to be shut-ins by natural events. It relieves them of the burden of having to make choices and of accepting that most of their problems are of their own making. In other words, when they blame it on the weather, that really is true.

[cxray]

Originally Posted by ArizonaBear

The one thing that does concern me about Phx in the summer is a prolonged power outage.

That's a valid point but you have to recall the reasons for why power outages are prolonged in the first place. The reason power outages are not prolonged in AZ is that streets and roads are still open so emergency vehicles and technicians can access them. AZ power outages don't affect nearly the same number of people in cold states so these AZ technicians are not overwhelmed to the point that they have to wait to address your issue. Phoenix is a new city so a lot of these power lines are underground and the infrastructure is well established as opposed to older cities. Finally, we don't have the type of weather to cause these power outages meaning we don't have tornadoes, hurricanes, and snow storms, hale etc. that lead to these problems. The worst we have are monsoons but those are rare and usually brief when they do occur.

[cxray]

Originally Posted by vegaspilgrim

cxray, all I can say is I am so glad I'm not you. It's not so much what your personal preferences are, it's your attitude. You sound like you don't have one ounce of adventure in your soul. You're so obsessed about the possible "disruptions" that could happen or 2, 3, 4, or 5 days out of the year, that your whole life is planned around avoiding any "disruption" at all costs-- well, what about the other 360 days of the year? There are many, many factors that go into deciding where to live, and weather is just one of them. And weather "disruptions" are just one of many, many types of unplanned, random "disruptions" that can occur in life. Sooner or later, every single one of us will experience the Ultimate Disruption, and there's no place on earth where we can go to escape that.

I have plenty of adventure. I went hiking in Nepal. I've traveled to central Africa. What you are referring to is not adventure. That's simply your way of coping with a very bad situation.

[Steve-o]

Originally Posted by cxray

Phoenix is a new city so the infrastructure is well established as opposed to older cities. Finally, we don't have the type of weather to cause these power outages meaning we don't have tornadoes, hurricanes, and snow storms, hale etc. that lead to these problems. The worst we have are monsoons but those are rare and usually brief when they do occur.

Is that first sentence a joke? LOL

Secondly, dont think AZ doesnt get tornadoes. Yes, theyre very rare, but they have occurred there and have killed people. And snow storms dont cause power outages, er at least not that Ive ever seen (that would be ice storms), nor does hail (not hale).

[cxray]

Originally Posted by Steve-o

Is that first sentence a joke? LOL

Secondly, dont think AZ doesnt get tornadoes. Yes, theyre very rare, but they have occurred there and have killed people. And snow storms dont cause power outages, er at least not that Ive ever seen (that would be ice storms), nor does hail (not hale).

Regarding "And snow storms don't cause power outages" http://www.chelanpud.org/1155.html ENJOY

This is coming from the guy who thinks everyone gets skin cancer for being exposed to UV radiation without taking genetics into consideration. LOL, I don't really expect you to understand infrastructure and development.

Oh, so Arizona suffers from tornadoes now too. Keep it up my friend. By that logic, I should just refer to the time people in downtown Chicago died of heat stroke. At least I have a URL. 600 people died over 5 days one summer. Go ahead and find an article stating 600 people in Phoenix died of cold-weather in 5 days or from "tornadoes"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Heat_Wave_of_1995

[cxray]

Originally Posted by steve22

By the way, if you're truly a medical professional, as you allege, you'd recall from physiology 101 that the human body's means of regulating body temperature is much more efficient in cold temps than it is in extreme hot weather. In fact, research this and you'll find that overexposure to heat is responsible for more morbidity and mortality in this country annually than all other weather-related phenomena COMBINED.

I don't know where you studied physiology or if you studied it at all but your claims are false and that's putting it politely. If you put a naked human body in 110 versus 10 F without any food or water, the human body would perish far faster in the cold. There is a reason humanity evolved out of warm climates particularly north Africa which is a desert climate. Extreme heat would lead to dehydration and death but the body can survive for prolonged periods without water. In extreme cold, the body will suffer from tissue necrosis, infection and so many CV related reasons that I don't have the time to discuss all those factors. There is no formal research to account for the morbidity and mortality due to cold versus hot weather. That's probably why you didn't provide a URL or any formal evidence like a pubmed article to support your statement because it's just your opinion. However, I have treated enough patients to know that cold-related pathology and disease overwhelmingly account for most patient deaths. Do you know how many people, particularly the elderly die from the flu and pneumonia in the winter alone? I was in Sierra Vista this summer. They get plenty of illegals sufferring from heat related illness due to attempts at crossing the border. However, their hospital almost becomes a war zone in the winter time. Even with the large number of heat related deaths they see, it pales in comparison to the number of deaths they see due to the cold in the winter time.

Sure, hot weather makes people with arthritis feel better. But it can also cause all sorts of other health problems-skin problems, renal stones (or renal failure), respiratory distress due to elevated ozone levels.

Respiratory distress caused by elevated "ozone" levels??? That statement is so absurd that it's not worth addressing. Let's just put it this way, I don't know of any pulmonary/critical care specialist who will even cite let alone be concerned with "elevated ozone" levels in regards to ARDS or reactive airway disease when compared to asthma, RSV and upper respiratory infections associated with cold weather. When a patient presents to the wards with ARDS, the pulmonologists are not writing "R/O elevated ozone levels" on the charts. And if you are a medical student, I would discourage you from writing that on your soap unless you enjoy being laughed at. Contrary to what you might be believe, dehyrdration is a very rare cause of renal stones. Most people who suffer from renal stones have a family history. Renal stones are also associated with bigger renal and GI pathology. .

And don't even get me started on valley fever.

Read about histoplasmosis and get back to me

The argument that Phoenix is a "healthier" place to live simply b/c it's warmer is a ludicrous statement. Look up data on the healthiest states in the country sometime based on a compliation of statistics, and you'll find that the healthiest states are located in the upper midwest, New England, and the upper Rocky Mountain regions.

That's not what we were debating. We were debating physiology. Physiologically speaking, warmer weather is better for the human body than extreme cold. The studies you are citing have everything to do with lifestyle and culture. Tucson is known as one of the healthier cities in America while Phoenix is known as one of the more unhealthy cities. Those rankings also take other subjective criteria into consideration like the number of gyms in a particular city or "outdoor activies" etc.