This time of the year, I try to be careful to be back at home before the yellow school buses interrupted the flow of traffic. It takes me a week or two to remember the buses are on the road regularly that it’s September. The 9th month is of course back to school time and typically our weather isn’t very hot. This year, the period from September 7th through the 9th will prove that upper 80s to low 90s can still happen while the kids are learning about math, history or perhaps a new language.

Being in school in the heat is certainly tough and it calls for slowing down, drinking water and generally just being smart about the weather. This hasn’t been a hot summer and this can make the September heat something we are not used to even more.

In Portland, there won’t be a September heat wave. Failing to reach 90 degrees yesterday means Maine’s largest city, which has never seen an official heat wave (on record), won’t this year. Inland areas, where a September heat waves are still very rare, will likely reach 90 again today and record an official September heat wave. Fryeburg for example should just nick the 90 degree mark again this afternoon.

90 degrees still uncommon along the coast
You can see from the chart below Portland doesn’t, on average reach the 90 degree mark very much.

Yes it’s hot and for many of us who are in fall work mode, it’s uncomfortable. While this isn’t necessarily fun, we are fortunate to have Casco Bay and all of the Gulf of Maine keeping much of the area from overheating in the summer. The humidity has been oppressive and one of the reasons the nights have been so warm. Back in 1999, during the same period, September 7th through the 9th, the Portland Jetport saw the low temperatures fail to fall under 67° making for a very uncomfortable period of sleeping especially without air conditioning.

Modern Convenience
I’m as guilty as anyone about the air conditioning. I can’t imagine life in the summer heat without it. However, if I had to survive in the heat without air conditioning I’d manage. It’s not lost on me that one of the many privileges of living in modern western society is we do have these pieces of technology which make living easier. Today, I pondered some electronic exchanges I read where the level of urgency and angst around a few hours in a hot classroom felt frankly overheated. I think about these things in a context where there are families crossing through Syria enduring a far higher level of heat and more intense angle of sun than any of us in New England. I think about kids heading off to in the 1800s. What were those school buildings and offices like to learn and work in? Air conditioning would have to wait until 1907 to even be invented.

Air Conditioning Saves Lives
According to MIT environmental economics professor Michael Greenstone, the widespread availability of air conditioning has saved lives. In a Washington Post article from December 2012, “A team of researchers from Tulane University, Carnegie Mellon University, the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology examined patterns in heat-related deaths between 1900 and 2004. The group found that days on which temperatures rose above 90 degrees Fahrenheit accounted for about 600 premature deaths annually between 1960 and 2004, one-sixth as many as would have occurred under pre-1960 conditions.” If further states the researchers found the likelihood of a premature death on an extremely hot day between 1929 and 1959 was 2.5 percent, the academics found, dropping to less than 0.5 percent after 1960.

You can find more of my weather information on Twitter @growingwisdom.

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Wednesday will bring more heat and more humidity. It will be tough to be in spaces without air conditioning, but fans can help. Keep hydrated if you are in a warm space, limit your activity and look forward to the cooler and eventually drier weather slated to arrive this weekend.

We may not be out of the 90 degree weather completely. 90s have occurred well into September and it was a hot 88 on the 7th of October back in 1963. If you love summer, it’s not ready to give up just yet.