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Old 06-25-2008, 08:05 AM
 
Location: Somewhere in Texas
5,406 posts, read 13,224,985 times
Reputation: 2800

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rakin View Post
How many of you guys were in TX during the heat wave of 1980? Daytime Temps were between 107-112 almost everyday for 60-80 days and it's still the gold standard of hot TX summers.

I recall putting a water sprinkler on our roof trying to cool off the house and the AC units running 24 hrs a day.

Swimming pool water got so warm you couldn't enjoy a swim.

It would be 102 degrees at 10pm at night.

That was one hot summer.
The stats for that summer are listed below. I remember it well, miserable. I remember the town thermometer reading 117 degrees several times. My daughter played little league softball and when the games were at 6 P.M., it was almost torture for everyone. There was a time or two I took her home; it was just way too hot for softball. 8 P.M. games gave some relief.

In Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas, high temperatures exceeded 100°F a total of 69 times, including a record 42 consecutive days from June 23 to August 3. Dallas/Fort Worth reached an all-time high on June 26 and 27, soaring to 113°F (45°C) on both days. In the northern hemisphere summer of 1980 in Dallas/Fort Worth, there were 29 days that either tied or broke records for those respective dates. Wichita Falls, Texas would hit 117°F (48°C), the highest temperature ever recorded in that city to date.

That 1980 heat wave claimed 1,700 hundred lives as it just wasn't hot in Texas.
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Old 06-25-2008, 08:17 AM
 
Location: North of DFW
595 posts, read 2,712,164 times
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I lived in Houston and worked for an airline. That June we had a tropical storm that sat off of Galveston for about 2 weeks and it rained and rained and rained....Then the heat set in ...not as bad as in DFW...then I got "bumped" to DFW in August and caught the tail end of that heat.
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Old 06-25-2008, 09:14 AM
 
Location: Plano, TX
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I was living in Shreveport, but working a lot in East Texas in the oil patch. I nearly got heat stroke one time. Not fun.
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Old 06-25-2008, 12:28 PM
 
Location: League City, Texas
2,919 posts, read 5,911,414 times
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i was in mississippi living in an upstairs apartment. the air conditioner broke down and i remember lying on the bed and spraying water on my cat, who was panting. not fun.
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Old 06-25-2008, 01:23 PM
 
288 posts, read 1,188,203 times
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I remember one of the days that summer was 113. A high pressure system parked over the region and didn't budge for over a month. No AC in my car either.
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Old 06-25-2008, 02:08 PM
 
3,086 posts, read 7,584,266 times
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Oh yeah, I remember that.

I had just gotten married to now ex-husband in fall of '79 and we lived in a little house that didn't have central A/C. We had only one window unit and we kept it in our bedroom and almost all time spent at home was in there. We simply couldn't afford another one.

I didn't even attempt to cook in the kitchen. We'd either eat at my mom's or out to eat.

I worked in retail so spent many extra hours at the mall in an attempt to stay cool.

The next summer, my mom bought us a terrific A/C window unit for the living room that kept the entire house cool. Thankfully it wasn't the same type summer that time.
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Old 06-25-2008, 02:30 PM
 
Location: DFW
40,919 posts, read 48,847,042 times
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Quote:
I had just gotten married to now ex-husband in fall of '79 and we lived in a little house that didn't have central A/C. We had only one window unit and we kept it in our bedroom and almost all time spent at home was in there.
So.... and your 1st child born that next spring ?
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Old 06-25-2008, 05:40 PM
 
1,992 posts, read 4,131,282 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rakin View Post
And in 1983 we had the Christmas cold spell that lasted 2-3 weeks where the temps never got above 22 and went as low as 6-8 or so for about 2 weeks. It's the only time I've ever seen our lakes start freezing over.
We visited Texas during the 1980 heat wave, took jobs, and moved to Abilene. I could not believe the heat, but we bragged to all of our friends in Akron, where we moved from, about the 80+ degree heat at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Friends came from Akron to stay with us two weeks during Christmas of 1983, and they didn't even bring coats or sweaters and were looking forward to the warmth. Boy, were they fooled. (So were we!!!)
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Old 06-25-2008, 06:25 PM
 
6,578 posts, read 25,378,272 times
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I was on high school drill team and we had our two-a-day practices outside, marching around the track over and over building stamina. I remember some girls fainting. It was so hot. What we were doing would never be allowed these days.
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Old 06-25-2008, 07:10 PM
 
Location: DFW
40,919 posts, read 48,847,042 times
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I recall people and apartments buying big blocks of ice to put in their pools so they could swim.
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