Recent searches
Search options
I just deployed a Mastodon bot that posts forecasts for the most dangerous upcoming heatwaves
You can follow it at
To determine how dangerous a heatwave is, it uses wet-bulb temperature, which is the temperature that a body can be cooled to by evaporation
Sweating works to cool you because generally the wet-bulb temperature is lower than body temperature
As wet-bulb temperature increases and approaches body temperature, people can no longer cool themselves by sweating and will die
@heatwave And apologies to Americans, this is a Celsius-speaking bot
If there is enough interest I might deploy an alternate Fahrenheit version of the bot
@LilyoftheRally @eob @heatwave
Can you givexus a verse for understanding Fahrenheit?
@CGdoppelpunkt @LilyoftheRally @eob @heatwave imperial measurements suck, best I can give you is "0 is freezing, 30 is still freezing, 60 is nice, 90 is hot"
Or "0 is freezing, 40 is not, 80 is warm, 120 is hot hot"
But those attitudes depend on where you live. Where I am in California, 75 is hot enough for people to wear our skimpiest clothes and 85 is hot enough for people to start complaining. More South or East still in Cali, people regularly see 110+. Another reason pneumonics are hard.
@raphaelmorgan Trust me - NO ONE is "used to 110+"
Forced to live in it, sure, but "used to it," get out of here.
@raphaelmorgan @CGdoppelpunkt @LilyoftheRally @eob @heatwave
When I had to learn Fahrenheits I found one suggestion quite intuitive. Assume the Fahrenheit scale as a percentage of "hotness". As in 0° is no heat at all in the air. One can freeze to death at that temperature. While 100° is 100% hot, it's really hot, and one can die of heat stroke at that temperature. Everything in between is a gradient between these two extremes with the comfortable zone at about 70%, pardon, 70°F
For understanding Fahrenheit:
Frostbite at 20;
Freeze at 32;
Chilly at 60;
Charred past 100.
@eob @heatwave I have always believed that if we intend on getting a message across to someone we must speak at their level. Climate change is a critical issue and using Fahrenheit is important so that those in the US understand the message. They also happen to be the biggest contributer to CC. In an ideal world they would understand Celcius but they don't.
So it would be advantageous to also use Fahrenheit .
@MichaelBishop @heatwave Good point.
I have created a second bot, @heatwave_usa , which is for heat waves just in the USA, and I configured it to present the temperatures in Fahrenheit
Why not just have one that's global and includes both C/F? Would be beneficial for everyone to see that extreme weather events are happing everywhere.
@eob @heatwave Cool bot! I think the american entries require a state, though. Eg, https://botsin.space/@heatwave/112631888162183448 "Port O'Conner, United States of America" doesn't make much sense to a US person unless you also include "Texas" in there. And "Sebastian, United States of America" appears to actually be in Mexico rather than the US (at least judging from the tile)? https://botsin.space/@heatwave/112632361099835103
@Andres4NY @eob @heatwave I looked Sebastian up, there's one in Florida
Edit: the one in the post was apparently in Texas. I might have looked up a different post, or there are multiple lol
But there are a lot of Spanish names in Texas and California because these areas used to be part of Mexico
@raphaelmorgan @Andres4NY @heatwave Yeah, I need to improve how the place is presented, either by having a more unambiguous name, or by showing the location explicitly on a map
It turns out the intended Sebastian in this case is actually in Texas, just across the border from Mexico, so it is on the little map, just it is such a small place that it is not named
Here it is in another map:
@eob @raphaelmorgan @Andres4NY @heatwave
Yeah, the US is full of place names that repeat in more than one state. 
One of the oddest things for me when reading a map of another state, is finding small towns with the same name as cities in my state, or vice-versa! 
So yes, some clarity would make a big difference! 
@5ciFiGirl @raphaelmorgan @Andres4NY @heatwave Thanks for the feedback.
I updated the bot to include the state. Hopefully that makes in more useful.
I also added a separate US-specific bot: @heatwave_usa
@eob @heatwave I’d like to add my vote for parenthetical °F rather than a separate bot. I don’t know what the API supports, but I’d be more inclined to follow a bot that only posted when temperatures were very high, especially if it could list every place where the wet bulb temperature is above the limit
@eob @heatwave
I don't mind getting the measurements in logical units... For my part, the conversion is pretty trivial.
I do have one adaptation that might be useful: I notice that it mentions specific cities and the country... I suspect mentioning state/province/region would be handy for some of us. Like, for my location I could follow and filter specifically for mentions of Oregon and Washington.
