Northernmost / Southernmost place where A/C is common

[nei]

Originally Posted by chicagogeorge

14.5% don't have it in the Midwest... But in Illinois only 0.3% do not have it (if I'm reading that correctly). I certainly don't know anyone who doesn't have AC in their home

I got 10% for Illinois, 14% for the Midwest from that source.

Another big difference is lot more in New England and New York State use wall units rather central. I remember you mentioned that forced air heating is more common there than radiators, makes it cheaper to add central A/C as you use the same vents. Wall units, Manhattan:

Spoiler

Washington Heights



Almsot thanksgiving and they haven't taken theirs down. Upper West Side:

[chicagogeorge]

Originally Posted by nei

I got 10% for Illinois, 14% for the Midwest from that source.

10% makes more sense.

Another big difference is lot more in New England and New York State use wall units rather central. I remember you mentioned that forced air heating is more common there than radiators, makes it cheaper to add central A/C as you use the same vents. Wall units, Manhattan:
]

Most apartments in the city have wall units and radiator heat. Most older homes have radiator heat, and also forced air AC units. Homes built from say the 1950's on have forced air units. I used to do HVAC before I became a teacher.

[forgotten username]

Originally Posted by Junter

Well, Las Cruces, Alamorgordo or El Paso are waaay hotter (specially El Paso) and it's totally normal to reach 41C or more. But I've seen the climate chart and in Osoyoo is unusual, the last year was very hot; 39C is not unusual but 41C... on Kelowna never arrived to 41C (at least according to their official climate charts). People tend to exaggerate, I found french, spaniard and italian people who were saying that it's not unusual to have 40C some days in July and August, while they live on places where the maximum recorded temperature didn't arrive to 40C in the history in their cities (one was from Lyon, another from Barcelona and two from Milano) and I've just checked now the historical max. temperature and only Lyon surpassed one single time 40, it arrived to 40.5; while Barcelona never surpassed 39C or Milano 38C.

I've just checked the official climate charts (Wikipedia, but the climate charts are from the canadian government) for Kelowna and Osoyoos , and in Kelowna the historical maximum temperature is 39.5C, while in Osoyoos is 42.8 in July and 41.7 in August; in Humidex is not unusual to surpass 41C. But anyways, Osoyoos averages 31.5C in July and 31.1C in August... That's very hot and it can be compared to the summers of places like Rome, Mallorca, Naples, Thessaloniki or Ankara, which are far on the south... so wow, impressive for being at that latitude!

I think sometimes the media also make people exaggerate, or sometimes people just read the thermometer in the car which shows extremely high values. I am from Lyon and I know 40c was reached at least once, I think there is an unofficial reading of 42c in 2003, but yeah, it's quite rare. 35c is quite common though, it does not happen every summer but several times a decade for sure.

Milano and Barcelona can get quite muggy so I believe people consider these cities to have quite oppresive summers. I even met someone from Athens, Greece, who had found it was too hot in Milano, so I guess not everyone is used to the same thing.

Also, about exaggerating, last time I was talking with a friend from Puglia area in southern italy and she said thatlast summer the temp had reached 47c... I found it a bit dubious, also because southern italians always try to make it sound like we are in Siberia here or something. They can not believe that our summers are usually just as hot.

[SluggoF16]

Originally Posted by Junter

Well, Las Cruces, Alamorgordo or El Paso are waaay hotter (specially El Paso) and it's totally normal to reach 41C or more. But I've seen the climate chart and in Osoyoo is unusual, the last year was very hot; 39C is not unusual but 41C... on Kelowna never arrived to 41C (at least according to their official climate charts). People tend to exaggerate, I found french, spaniard and italian people who were saying that it's not unusual to have 40C some days in July and August, while they live on places where the maximum recorded temperature didn't arrive to 40C in the history in their cities (one was from Lyon, another from Barcelona and two from Milano) and I've just checked now the historical max. temperature and only Lyon surpassed one single time 40, it arrived to 40.5; while Barcelona never surpassed 39C or Milano 38C.

I've just checked the official climate charts (Wikipedia, but the climate charts are from the canadian government) for Kelowna and Osoyoos , and in Kelowna the historical maximum temperature is 39.5C, while in Osoyoos is 42.8 in July and 41.7 in August; in Humidex is not unusual to surpass 41C. But anyways, Osoyoos averages 31.5C in July and 31.1C in August... That's very hot and it can be compared to the summers of places like Rome, Mallorca, Naples, Thessaloniki or Ankara, which are far on the south... so wow, impressive for being at that latitude!

I see with a lookup that it was in fact several degrees cooler than the Kelowna news reported; the airport is on the cooler east side of the Okanagan Valley. The vehicle I was driving said 42C but I never believe them, they can vary a lot. Oliver and Penticton were both 40C that day; possible reporting site at the downtown news station may have had something to do with it? No one ever believed the news station in Phoenix when I was a kid; it was always 5 degrees hotter near downtown than the NWS station at the airport.

In any case, it was hot (not Phoenix hot) and dry, so it wasn't like being in Mobile, AL or New Orleans.

[Glacierx]

Originally Posted by Junter

Well, Las Cruces, Alamorgordo or El Paso are waaay hotter (specially El Paso) and it's totally normal to reach 41C or more. But I've seen the climate chart and in Osoyoo is unusual, the last year was very hot; 39C is not unusual but 41C... on Kelowna never arrived to 41C (at least according to their official climate charts). People tend to exaggerate, I found french, spaniard and italian people who were saying that it's not unusual to have 40C some days in July and August, while they live on places where the maximum recorded temperature didn't arrive to 40C in the history in their cities (one was from Lyon, another from Barcelona and two from Milano) and I've just checked now the historical max. temperature and only Lyon surpassed one single time 40, it arrived to 40.5; while Barcelona never surpassed 39C or Milano 38C.

I've just checked the official climate charts (Wikipedia, but the climate charts are from the canadian government) for Kelowna and Osoyoos , and in Kelowna the historical maximum temperature is 39.5C, while in Osoyoos is 42.8 in July and 41.7 in August; in Humidex is not unusual to surpass 41C. But anyways, Osoyoos averages 31.5C in July and 31.1C in August... That's very hot and it can be compared to the summers of places like Rome, Mallorca, Naples, Thessaloniki or Ankara, which are far on the south... so wow, impressive for being at that latitude!

The wikipedia page is totally bunk. It's not that hot in Osoyoos. The July average is actually only about 29.5 degrees. The 30 year average weather station shows this. Here's the thing, the Osoyoos Chamber of Commerce and tourism officials will edit the Osoyoos Wikipedia if anyone show the actual station data. Instead, they will revert the temperature data that is based upon the automated station that only has 15 or so years, and the 15 hottest years on record. They do this because they claim to be the hottest place in Canada, and that can only be done by cherry picking data. Apples to apples, they aren't the hottest place in the summer.