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Onset of a Heat Wave Can Catch the Body Off Guard
"More people die of heat in May and June than in August, even if the weather is exactly the same," said Laurence Kalkstein, who as a University of Delaware bioclimatologist researches the effect of heat on human health.
In cities with relatively variable climates, heat waves are more dangerous than they are in those with consistent heat to which people become accustomed.
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Heat, Humidity Smother AreaThe fiercest summer heat to hit the Washington region in four years led officials to throw open cooling shelters and sent tourists in the nation's capital scurrying to their hotel swimming pools for relief. |
Compared with the threat of heat waves in other cities, the danger in the Washington area is "moderate to moderate high," Kalkstein said. The region's weather is less variable than that of New York, St. Louis or Toronto. On the other hand, it is not New Orleans or Phoenix, where 95-degree days are pretty ordinary.
The National Weather Service has relied on Kalkstein's research in establishing a system to issue heat-wave warnings in 20 cities, including Washington. Forecasters do not rely only on predicted heat and humidity to decide whether to tell people and governments to take precautions. They also plug in wind speed, cloud cover, successive days of heat, deaths during past heat waves and availability of air conditioning to obtain a computer-guided risk assessment.
"Heat is kind of an underrated killer," Weather Service meteorologist Mark Tew said. "More people die of heat-related mortality than any other [environmental] factor. It's not as sexy as tornadoes or other things."
Bill Frain is a walking case study on how extreme temperatures affect the human body. A butcher, he works all day in a 30-degree meat locker at a Safeway supermarket in La Plata, wearing a T-shirt under a long-sleeve shirt under a fleece-hooded sweat shirt under a white meat coat under an apron. It's always a shock leaving at the end of the day.
After being in the cold air, "you go outside and it's 100, [and] everything dilates real fast," he said. "You get a headache and your eyes blur up from the extreme cold to the extreme heat. It's like a car when the windows fog up."
Staff writer Philip Rucker contributed to this report.
