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Comment by mrkrabo | Hacker News Reader

Try to go out with 45 degrees, with direct sunlight, etc. Some people will even faint within minutes. Because remember you don't get teleported to the shop, you have to walk.

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It was 48 degrees in Phoenix a couple weeks ago. We all walked around outside successfully without fainting.

I congratulate you to a good health. Here in sweden people drop dead when temp goes above 25 C. All depends on your health...

Phoenix is not even in the same conversation as Spanish cities when it comes to walking. Madrid, Barcelona and others you walk everywhere to do anything.

As they say about Phoenix, "it's a dry heat". It's near 20% humidity during peak sunlight during the day. I've been there in really hot summer weather and I was surprised by how really high temperatures didn't feel as hot as I was expecting. To give you an idea of how much this matters, in a gentle breeze, 39.5 C at 20% humidity feels like 57.3 C at 90% humidity.

People definitely don't faint within minutes in a typical Phoenix sunlight. The biggest risks are sunburn and dehydration, both of which take a lot longer.

> To give you an idea of how much this matters, in a gentle breeze, 39.5 C at 20% humidity feels like 57.3 C at 90% humidity.

That cannot possibly be correct.

Humidity has a massive multiplication effect on both cold and hot temperatures.

I would take 110F dry over 80F humid any day. I would also take 10F dry over 30F humid.

The prior claim was that, in a gentle breeze, 135F and 90% RH was the same as 103F and 20% RH (that hotter AND more humid was the same as less hot and drier).

Sorry, I meant to say that 57.3 C at 20% humidity feels the same as 39.5 C at 90% humidity.

I have in the Phoenix and Death Valley deserts. I think you don't understand the difference between low humidity heat and high humidity heat. The latter is intolerable and causes the problems you described. The former just requires adequate hydration.

I'm from a much milder but still hot climate, and while the summer weather probably wouldn't make you faint in minutes, people spent very little time outside of air conditioned homes, cars, and shops, and the towns were designed around that fact.

have spent much time in 110+ degree weather - you just have to hydrate.

What's the humidity there though? In much of the Southern US, we get temps well above 100 with very high levels of humidity. Even with hydration it is dangerous.

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