Latest news with #airconditioning
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Columbus heat index to reach triple digits this week. See when it will hit.
You may want to make sure your air conditioning is working. Columbus, and a sizable chunk of the nation, is in for a scorcher of a week with heat index values as high as 105 degrees possible on July 24 and 25, according to the National Weather Service in Wilmington. Daytime high will climb into the 90s starting on Wednesday and remain there at least until Monday, with a brief dip into the 80s on Saturday, according to an NWS forecast. That's just the air temperature. Humidity will make those temperatures feel much warmer. If you're headed to the Ohio State Fair this week, you might want to hydrate and make sure you know a few places to beat the heat. But don't forget your umbrella. More: Ohio State Fair weather forecast: Will rain or extreme heat spoil a dozen days of fun? Those hot temperatures won't be accompanied by clear skies as showers and thunderstorms are in the Columbus forecast Thursday through Sunday. What were the hottest July days in Columbus? While the heat index this week will make central Ohio feel more like the Louisiana bayoy, Columbus will get nowhere near the hottest recorded air temperature for July, according to the NWS. Two July days are among the hottest on record. They were July 14, 1936, and July 21, 1934, which both reached highs of 106 degrees. Columbus weather for the week of July 22, 2025 Tuesday Night: It will be mostly clear with a low around 63. There will be an east wind of around 6 mph that will become calm in the evening. Wednesday: It will be sunny with a high near 91. There will be a calm wind that will start moving south around 5 mph in the afternoon. Wednesday Night: It will be mostly clear with a low around 70. There will be a south wind of around 5 mph that will become calm in the evening. Thursday: There is a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms after 2 p.m. It will be sunny with a high near 94. There will be a southwest wind of 3 to 7 mph. The chance of precipitation is 20%. Thursday Night: It will be mostly clear with a low around 75. Friday: Showers and thunderstorms are likely, mainly after 2 p.m. It will be partly sunny with a high near 92. The chance of precipitation is 60%. Friday Night: Showers and thunderstorms are likely before 2 a.m., then there is a chance of showers. It will be mostly cloudy with a low around 73. The chance of precipitation is 60%. Saturday: Showers are likely with thunderstorms also possible after 2 p.m. It will be mostly cloudy with a high near 87. The chance of precipitation is 70%. Saturday Night: There is a chance of showers and thunderstorms. It will be mostly cloudy with a low around 73. The chance of precipitation is 40%. Sunday: There is a chance of showers and thunderstorms. It will be partly sunny with a high near 90. The chance of precipitation is 40%. Sunday Night: It will be partly cloudy with a low around 73. Monday: It will be sunny with a high near 92. Breaking and trending news reporter Nathan Hart can be reached at NHart@ and at @NathanRHart on X and at on Bluesky. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Heat index to hit triple digits in Columbus this week Solve the daily Crossword
Wall Street Journal
3 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Atlanta's Growth Streak Has Come to an End
ATLANTA—Since the invention of air conditioning, Atlanta has known one constant: growth. The region is finally cooling off.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Arizona AG demands action after Phoenix apartments go without AC in heat
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has demanded immediate action after a person died and another was hospitalized while living at a Phoenix apartment complex that lacked proper air conditioning for multiple units.
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Climate
- Bloomberg
Brits Keep a Sweaty Upper Lip on Air Conditioning
There's a somewhat gratifying TikTok trend at the moment where Americans visiting London in a heatwave realize that, yes, British heat does 'hit different.' One tourist says, 'it feels as if I'm in a sauna.' Another admitted that he always thought British people were lying, but 'for some reason it just feels like you are melting.' Inevitably, the talk turns to air conditioning. After all, parts of the US definitely get hotter and just as humid as the UK, but there's usually refuge to be taken in mechanically cooled homes.
Associated Press
5 days ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Most Texas prisoners don't have AC access and it's unclear when they will get it
Two thirds of people incarcerated in Texas' prisons face another summer without air conditioning after lawmakers again declined to pass legislation that would mandate a timeline for installing climate control in state facilities. After years of promises from state officials that resulted in modest progress and a federal judge who has ruled Texas' prison heat conditions unconstitutional but declined to force any changes, tens of thousands of people incarcerated in the state do not know if they will see air conditioning anytime soon. 'During this triple digit summer, approximately 88,000 individuals in Texas prisons do not have air conditioning,' said Amite Dominick, founder and president of Texas Prisons Community Advocates. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice currently has 48,372 cooled living areas across its facilities, providing climate control to roughly a third of the 137,778 people incarcerated in the state's prisons, as of June 30, according to agency spokesperson Amanda Hernandez. Bryan Collier, executive director of TDCJ, has repeatedly called adding air conditioning to Texas' prisons his top priority. However, Collier has never committed the agency to a definitive timeline for installing climate control across the system absent the passage of legislation that would provide more than a billion dollars for the effort. At the current rate of installing air conditioning, it would take 25 years to climate control Texas' prisons 'on the most generous timeline,' according to U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman in a March ruling. Complicating TDCJ's future commitment to solving the issue, Collier is retiring Aug. 31 and the nine-member Texas Board of Criminal Justice is tasked with appointing his replacement. 'Despite knowing of the risk extreme heat poses to all inmates and the inadequacy of TDCJ's mitigation measures, Collier has no concrete timeline for installing permanent or temporary air conditioning in TDCJ inmate living areas,' wrote Pitman. Indoor temperatures routinely exceed 100 degrees, and court records show hundreds of incarcerated people have been diagnosed with heat-related illnesses. According to Pitman's ruling, 'TDCJ has admitted that at least 23 individuals died in TDCJ facilities from heat-related causes between 1998 and 2012' and 'Collier admitted he was aware of 10 deaths from heat stroke in the summer of 2011 alone.' Asked when TDCJ would air condition all its facilities, Hernandez declined to answer the question 'due to pending litigation.' TDCJ received $85 million from the state in 2023 and an additional $118 million this year to build air conditioning, but it has never formally bid out the cost of installing air conditioning throughout all its facilities, according to court testimony from TDCJ Facilities Director Ronald Hudson last year. Hernandez again cited pending litigation and declined to answer whether TDCJ had bid out the cost of air conditioning for all its facilities in the time since. 'The fundamental issue is, how can they give any estimate as to the amount of time it'll take or how much it'll cost, without soliciting bids for air conditioning the entire system?' said Kevin Homiak, partner and pro bono chair at Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell, who represents incarcerated people in the federal lawsuit. TDCJ accelerates construction, but judge seeks more TDCJ has completed 2,902 air-conditioned beds using the $85 million appropriated in 2023 and plans to finish another 12,827 within 18 months, according to Hernandez. The agency has now 'expensed or obligated' all that funding, up from just $13 million at the start of this year. This legislative session, lawmakers appropriated an additional $118 million that Hernandez said the agency estimates will fund 18,000 more beds, while declining to provide a timeline for completion. So far, 2,378 of those beds are waiting for vendors to submit construction bids, while 15,798 beds are in the design phase, Hernandez said. The funding from the Legislature has corresponded with a significant shift in pace for TDCJ, which has more than doubled its rate of building cooled living areas in recent years. Court documents and archives of its online tracker show the agency built fewer than 1,000 cooled beds annually between 2018 and 2021, but built 6,700 beds between 2022-2023. Since 2023, TDCJ has averaged building over 3,000 beds per year. Despite this acceleration, Pitman challenged the agency's commitment in his March ruling, scrutinizing whether TDCJ has devoted adequate resources to addressing the crisis. 'Although TDCJ has a multi-billion-dollar budget, it has allocated only $115.5 million to installing air conditioning in TDCJ units since 2018,' Pitman wrote. Advocates remain skeptical of TDCJ's progress, pointing to the large number of incarcerated people who continue to live without air conditioning or an understanding of when they may receive it. 'That's little but nothing, that's minuscule,' said Dominick of the roughly 3,000 beds so far completed using the money appropriated in 2023. TDCJ sets own timeline as advocates await ruling Without legislative mandates or judicial orders, TDCJ sets its own timeline for installing air conditioning using funds from a general maintenance budget. Dominick said this approach allows the agency to 'maintain control and power' over the pace of installation. TDCJ cites design challenges as the main bottleneck to building air conditioning. Hernandez said the major holdup is designing for different cell types and the difficulty of building in older facilities, some of which date to the 1800s. 'Once we have the blueprint in place for adding air conditioning to a standard facility type… we can bid those out and build them more quickly,' she said. TDCJ's pace of building has raised questions about the agency's cost estimates and construction capabilities. In his 2024 federal court testimony, Hudson acknowledged that because the agency has never formally bid out the cost of installing air conditioning throughout all its facilities, its cost estimates at that time were 'pie-in-the-sky.' TDCJ's credibility on cost estimates has been questioned before. During a 2017 federal case involving the Wallace Pack Unit, the agency's cost projections for building air conditioning dropped from more than $20 million to $11 million after recalculation, with actual installation costs totaling less than $4 million. Prison air conditioning has not been added to the summer 2025 special session agenda. So, absent extraordinary legislative action, advocates hope relief comes either from TDCJ stepping up its rate of building air conditioning or Pitman ruling on a definite timeline for the installation of air conditioning through the jury trial in March 2026, the next major step in the ongoing federal civil rights case. 'When I initially chose what our organization was going to focus on with limited resources, I purposely didn't choose legal because I thought it was going to take longer,' said Dominick. 'I believe I was naive at the time.' ___ This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
