Commentary, Opinion

How hot is it?

August 6, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

Predicting the weather has become a very accurate process over the past 20 or so years – maybe longer.

Thanks to Doppler radar, satellites, and whatever else meteorologists use to follow weather patterns, they can predict the weather by the hour.

It used to be that people would curse the weatherman whenever it rained on a church or company picnic day, even though it was predicted to be sunny with clear skies.

I use a weather app all the time to make plans. The predictions are accurate over several days.

If I am going to a baseball game but it is raining, I will check the weather app to see if the skies are going to clear up by game time.

Almost always, I can count on that information to be accurate.

Thanks weather people, you’re doing a great job.

However, there’s one thing I don’t understand.

The radio stations all seem to deliver weather reports the same way: “It’s going to be sunny and 25 degrees, but it will feel like 31.” Or “It’s going to be zero, but will feel like -5.”

I’m not sure what that is supposed to mean.

If it’s 25 degrees, why would it feel like 31? Isn’t what you are feeling at that temperature what 25 degrees actually feels like?

That’s like saying you’re doing 50 kilometres per hour in your car, but you feel like you’re doing 70.

That’s just an observation about something that is odd.

There are a lot of odd things in life.

If you drive a car, you’ve likely experienced some kind of ‘radio vision’ problem.

This occurs when you are driving happily down the road listening to the Beach Boys, Taylor Swift, or a rocking version of Nearer My God to Thee by the Lawrence Welk Orchestra.

You see something unusual ahead and start to slow down, or you need to parallel park on a reasonably busy street.

What should you do? Turn down the radio, of course.

The radio has absolutely no connection to what you see; however, for some reason, we all turn the radio down to clarify what we see on the road ahead, or to make sure we see the other cars when backing into that parking spot.

Maybe we fear that Celine Dion singing My Heart Will Go On will cause sudden double vision or a loss of concentration.

Do you usually start buying new clothes as summer approaches because you simply can’t wear a button-down long-sleeve shirt in July? You’re not alone.

However, later you find that only two or three of those new T-shirts feel right and look good on you. The entire summer, you wear those same shirts while the others hang in the closet.

Wear a shirt – wash – repeat – until the fall arrives.

“How much do you drink?” That’s a common question a doctor will ask a patient when assessing a medical condition or history.

Apparently, that’s also the question no one ever answers honestly. People will never admit to drinking as much as they do.

I can understand that. No one wants to admit they knock back a Mickey of vodka every morning – especially to the person in front of you taking down notes.

However, your doctor is there to help you, not judge you.

It’s the same when someone is pulled over by the police and asked how much they have had to drink that evening.

The answer is always, ‘only a couple of beers,’ which sounds better than, ‘six beers, two shots of rye, and I drank a shot of tequila out of some strange girl’s belly button during happy hour,’ before you got in your car and assaulted the public streets with your impaired driving ability.

How many times have you clicked ‘I agree’ when reading the terms and conditions on a web page without reading them? Everyone does this.

But reading the fine print could actually be a big deal.

There’s a famous story of a guy in Russia who did read the fine print of a notice his bank sent him about his credit card.

He didn’t like it at all.

He rewrote the fine print in his favour and sent it back to the bank.

No one at the bank read the revised fine print, so they signed it and entered into a contract with him.

It turns out that, under the new agreement, the bank would owe him money!

The bank took the case to court. The judge ruled that the contract was valid and told the bank they should have read the fine print.

Score one for the little guy.

Time to go outside, drink a six-pack in my favourite T-shirt, and soak in the 25-degree heat, which apparently feels like 50!

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