Chez Chesler

MyFoxBoston After a week of unseasonably but pleasantly cool temperatures, summer is hitting us with one last heat wave. There is a heat and humidity alert out, and we may tie or break the August 25 record high 96 degrees. That was the lead story on last night's Fox news (Boston's WFXT 25). The meteorologist (I think Kevin Lemanowicz) gave a brief report on the heat, and anchor Kim Carrigan commented "Wow, isn't this kind of late to have record-breaking heat?" Uh Kim, they have records for every day (and month, and season, and location...) It's like baseball. It is pretty late in August to have a record-breaker for August, or for the year, but on any day the high can be higher than any other high ever recorded for that day, or for that matter lower than any other daily high for the day; same for the low which can be colder than the coldest low for that day, or warmer than the warmest low. Granted, a record-breaking high during warm seasons, and a record-breaking low during cold seasons, is more newsworthy, but either way it's a record. I'm reminded of a dance I went to at a neighboring college (now a neighboring university.) I'd been a good student in high school, which is how I'd gotten in to Harvard, but I struggled as an undergraduate. I struck up a conversation with a young woman from that college (now a university) and she said "You go to Harvard? You must be smart. I bet you get all As." It didn't work like that then either.