Page 124 - CHASING THE WIND EDIT

In the late 1960’s, we bought a Ford Station Wagon with plans to travel to Six Flags in
Atlanta with the Willis (Bill and Arie) family trailing behind. Before we reached Lake
City, our radiator hose burst and we had to pull off to the side of Interstate 10 three
miles short of the U.S. Highway 441 exit. The Willises stopped at the Gulf station and
informed the mechanic of our problem. Surprisingly, he temporarily fixed the leak by
stuffing a piece of cloth in the hole and wrapping it with a rag so enough water could
remain in the radiator ‘til we pulled into the station. Arriving in Atlanta, all of our kids
enjoyed the rides at Six Flags.

A month or two later we drove to Lion Country Safari in south Florida, a few miles
west of West Palm Beach. We were confined to the safety of our car while the animals
roamed freely outside. Our air conditioner did not adequately keep us cool. When we
returned home we discovered that the hot water hose from the radiator had not been
turned off. It was warming the heater coils inside the car. Our travel was not as hot as
we extended our travel on the Gulf coast and Sapelo Island.
We then visited Ft. Myers and the Thomas Edison Estate. I was impressed with the
numerous plants growing where he was researching a source that could be used to
develop rubber. He found the Goldenrod had some potential, but he was too old to
finish the project.

After working five summers with the U.S. Weather Bureau in Jacksonville, plus 15
years reporting summer heat at WJXT, I realized that not all 90 degree days felt the
same. When the humidity was low, it didn’t feel as hot as when the humidity was
higher. As a meteorologist, I was aware of the fact that the evaporation of moisture
from our skin is nature’s cooling mechanism. Humid air makes it more difficult for the
skin’s evaporation to cool the body. After studying the work of Orville Heavener, who
coined the word humiture, I modified his scale to our eastern U.S. humidity.

Since the moisture content of the air is reported by the dew point temperature, I
recognized that a dewpoint of 65 separated the muggy from the crisp feeling in the air.
As a result, I used a simplified method to report the humiture/heat index by adding each
degree that the dew point was above 65 to the temperature.

Here’s an example of using the dew point and temperature to determine the
humiture/heat index:

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