At CDN we’re old enough to remember that summer has always been the hot season in the Northern Hemisphere. And that journalists used to know this. For instance a writer in Chronicles magazine in February 1991, commenting on growing public disorder, observed that “In the 1920’s and 1930’s, many families habitually slept in Central Park on hot summer nights, even at the Harlem end.” Today it’s “Dangerous heat dome scorches millions of Americans” and the map is red, dark red and very dark red. The temperatures are the same, of course. But now “Americans are roasting” as the rhetorical flames leap upward.
When it’s hot nowadays you also get scorched with claims of “record-breaking” heat. It doesn’t matter if any actual records are actually broken because everybody knows. Or journalists who are accustomed to having the AC on all the time faint when they go outside in summer and think it’s the heat not them. Thus the New York Times presents as “BREAKING NEWS” that:
“New York City Hits Its Hottest Temperature in More Than a Decade/ The official temperature gauge in Central Park reached 99 degrees this afternoon for the first time since July 18, 2012. And it could climb even higher.”
So a story that it was at least as hot ten years ago is turned into something unheard of complete with “could” rather than, as one might once have expected in a “news” paper, “did”.
Did being, for instance, Steve Milloy’s observation on June 28 that “Despite much global warming hysteria, the last seven days in the US have been slightly cooler than average.” Despite which Heatmap committed a similar sin to that of the Times, just on a larger scale, with “June heat wave smashes temperature records”. Smashes! Meaning it was hotter than ever? Much hotter? Heck no. Instead:
“• New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport recorded 102 degrees Fahrenheit, its hottest temperature since 1948./ • Boston also hit 102 degrees, marking the city’s warmest June day ever./ • Providence, Rhode Island, broke a monthly temperature record set in 1945./ • The mercury hit 100 degrees in Philadelphia for the first time since 2012./ • In Toronto, Canada, temperatures reached almost 97 degrees, the highest in a decade.”
So Kennedy Airport was hotter more than 75 years ago despite being much less of a heat trap right after World War II when it was “Idlewild” because it displaced a cool grassy golf course of the same name and jet airplanes were still a novelty. On which point Accuweather, while hyping that June 24 was hotter in NYC than the previous record set during the first Grover Cleveland administration, did concede that the actual normal spot for measurement, Central Park, did not get into triple digits but never mind because:
“Some areas not far from Central Park, where the official weather observations for the city are taken, did manage to hit 100 degrees, including Newark (103) and John F. Kennedy International Airport (102).”
So the place you don’t measure it because it’s artificially hot was hotter than the one where you do because it’s not. We are all going to die.
The Boston Herald did better, if only very slightly, with:
“The thermometer at Boston Logan International Airport showed 102 degrees as of 5:23 p.m. Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service’s Boston office. The 102-degree reading set the record for the hottest ever June temp in city history. It broke the previous 100-degree June days in 2021, 1952, and 1925.”
CBS also said:
“Tuesday was the warmest June day ever recorded in Boston. The high of 102 degrees beat out the prior June record of 100 set in 2021, 1952 and in 1925.”
But they ran a graphic saying the all-time record in Boston, 104, was set in… um… 1911. Yes. That 1911. The one before World War I. Also “It was the 28th time in recorded history that Boston hit 100 degrees and the first time since 2022.” So it’s not exactly an accelerating trend, is it?
And we invite readers to compare Urban Heat Island conditions at Logan International Airport in 2025 with those present in 1952 and 1925. But also to ponder whether, even if you believe that it wasn’t a distorted reading due to, well, acres of asphalt and hundreds of throbbing jet aeroplane engines, the fact that temperatures were very similar a century ago means there (a) is a man-made climate crisis or (b) is not a man-made climate crisis.
MSN also tried to turn Toronto into Dante’s inferno with a Weather Network item “Toronto records its hottest temperature in nine years amid heat wave”. Again at the airport, of course, and 36C. Which we’re old enough to remember, living in Canada, is not 100F. It’s 96.8. Yet their map is red even in places where they were forecasting 31C, which isn’t even 90F. And asking (there it is again) “When will Ontario’s scorching heat cool down?” It never even arrived.
Well, it did in the press. The CBC went with “Dangerous heat to hit eastern Ontario, southern Quebec Sunday afternoon” in order to scare us with:
“Dangerous heat and humidity is expected to arrive in eastern Ontario and southern Quebec Sunday afternoon, with Environment Canada issuing heat warnings across the region and forecasting potential record-breaking highs for the first full week of summer. The forecast includes highs in some places hitting 36 C, with humidex values up to 45 and overnight lows only dropping down to 25 C.”
Again the treatment of something that might happen as news displeases us. But so does calling 36C menacing. It’s actually slightly below typical body temperature. Unpleasant? Sure. Dangerous? Hardly. Unprecedented? Hoo hah.
Oh, and speaking of dark red scary maps, Britain’s Daily Mail wrote, sardonically we assume, that “Brits enjoy sun as experts warn of UK amber-heat health alert” before killing off “nearly 600” theoretical people, as in:
“Experts warn nearly 600 could die in England and Wales during the heatwave, as temperatures soar to 34C.”
Yeah. Experts warn. But soar to 34C? Only in Britain. Prompting the Babylon Bee headline, sardonically we know:
“Millions Of Britons Drop Dead After Seeing Strange Shiny Yellow Thing In Sky For First Time”.
Undaunted, the Mail cranked up another one: “Killer heatwave on the way: Britain gets ready for 34C temperatures as Government issues amber alert”. Killer. 34C. Pfui. Is everyone in Africa dead? Or is 93F technically uncomfortable which is not a synonym for lethal?
Speaking of synonyms, can they also not even use a thesaurus? Bloomberg goes “Climate Change Increases Intensity of Heat Wave Scorching UK”. Scorching? Yup. All the cool kids are saying it to describe the piles of charred flesh and smoking corpses. Or at least:
“High pressure over the UK, along with a stream of air that is rapidly warming as it descends from over Greenland, will bring highs of 33C to London on Saturday, with 34C for parts of eastern England, Met Office forecasts show.”
Once upon a time “100 in the shade” meant it was seriously hot. Now you’re scorched by 93. Or so journalists say. And of course “Climate Change Increases” statement of fact was code for “World Weather Attribution” eye of newt. We shouldn’t be able to smell WWA lurking behind a headline but, as so often with RCP8.5, we can and did.
Oh, we should mention that Steve Milloy aka @JunkScience posted that a June heatwave in ’25 did set the Washington DC record. That would be 1925, though. Which the legacy media should mention but certainly aren’t about to because, as Milloy said:
“100 years of emissions and urban island heat island effect couldn't help 2025 beat 1925 on a single day.”
Meanwhile, what’s with the Globe & Mail, Canada’s would-be newspaper of record, emailing us:
“Your guide to a perfect Canadian summer/ Across Canada, people are stepping outside to soak up every moment of the season – and we’re right there with you.”
What? Into the scorching heat of death? Are you mad? Or don’t you believe your own news copy? It’s enough to make you scream.
Speaking of which, we’re also old enough to remember a Dave Berg cartoon in Mad Magazine back in the 1970s of a couple staggering along pouring sweat and agreeing that if they hear one more person say it’s not the heat it’s the humidity they’re going to scream. Whereupon someone greets them, says it, they scream and the perpetrator comments “You know, it’s NOT the heat, and it’s not the humidity either. It’s all that SCREAMING.”
Now it’s the stupid headlines. AAAAHHHHH!
P.S. Temperatures then tumbled in Ontario to highs below 20C/68F, which is where wimps set their air conditioning. No lurid headlines resulted.
The definitive weather comment was made by General Philip Sheridan during the US civil war who remarked "if I owned both Texas and Hell I'd rent out Texas and live in Hell". Having been in Houston in 100/100 weather (100 degF, 100% humidity) I would agree with him.