Nc/sc southeast Summer showing under Heat advisory

[fivestrideline]

Yeah you either ride early or late, around here. And opt for the shady pasture or the covered or indoor. I miss the indoor with fans honestly, but any shade is a blessing!

Alcohol sprays, or just hosing the horse off entirely and standing them in front of the fans while tacking up helps too. They’re pretty cool and dry enough to saddle quite quickly. Obviously at a certain temperature + humidity it’s just not going to happen, but for our average summers, it’s possible to ride most days without risking the health of horse or rider. No drilling or really intense schools, just get one or two things done and call it quits.

The other thing we do is cut the cool-down short. Get off the horse and pull tack, hose them off and THEN go walk. No sense in walking a hot sweaty horse under saddle forever when you can get out of the sun and cool them off way quicker by getting OFF. A nice long hack after a ride is best saved for when it’s cooler and breezier.

ETA for shows it’s the same. Minimal warmup, just wtc for a bit and pop and fence and go in. No standing around waiting in the sun to watch others go, send the horse back. Alcohol and water in a spray bottle, cool water for the horse, wet towels in a cooler, and scratching when it’s just too hot and humid are all ways to show in the summer down here. And people pick the venues that make reasonable accommodations with cooling stations and schedule changes and covered rings. It means a lot of your local/unrated things don’t run in the summer, which is fine by me.

[GraceLikeRain]

Thought about this thread this morning while riding. It was 78 degrees. Humidity was 92. We did a 32 minute ride including warm up and both of us were soaked. The humidity in the Carolina’s doesn’t drop into the 70s until mid to late afternoon at which point the temperature is between 88-93. There’s no winning. I rode last night as well and at 9 pm it was still 83 degrees and 81% humidity.

[ParadoxFarm]

@skydy

They always enjoyed a good cold water hosing. I wish I has a video of my gelding, who for some reason really enjoyed a good hard hose blast to his gums. He’s flap his lips and it took me a while to realize that he really enjoyed maximum hose nozzle pressure to his gums. He was a weirdo but I loved him dearly.

Reminds me of one of mine.

[endlessclimb]

There’s lots of Facebook posts floating around about the heat. The suggestions to put sprinklers out - are these people on the world’s greatest wells or what? Our well is artesian (has pressure without a pump), and I still would never just leave a sprinkler running for hours.

[crackerjack]

Well you’re very lucky then.

Where I am we are constantly breaking heat records each year and the threat of fires is now a thing when it never was before. We’ve also has a couple tornadoes and derechos which were never a thing even ten years ago. Even our winters aren’t as cold or snowy. It was 109F last week. That is not normal for us.

[Nikki]

Try again.

I was ground zero during the hurricane where the WHOLE county lost power for SIX days. As soon as you entered NC, there was no power. Even the Waffle houses were closed and that’s bad. It was also very hot. Our boys got to work as soon as the rain stopped while FEMA was sitting on their rears. I was also on ground zero in Mobile, AL when Katrina hit. NC was way worse IMO.

Then we had whipping winds for 2 months after, but it calmed down. We had a whole mountain on fire 3 miles from my home. Smoke and fire everywhere. It happens every year.

Every winter it gets below freezing around Jan and then warms up around March. When June hits, it gets hot as Hades but then cools down when October hits. This has been the same year after year. It has nothing to do with luck.

The only thing that has changed is that most of us are indoors under AC/Heat all day and have gotten used to it.

[crackerjack]

Huh?

Sorry I’m just saying that my weather has changed exponentially. It’s not just normal seasons here anymore. I’m sorry you had to go through natural disasters. That sounds tough. Maybe I misunderstood that you thought the increase in extreme heat and other weather was normal.

[fivestrideline]

We had the first ever heat advisory in Alaska this year. Temps in the 90s. Yeah, the history of “ability to issue Heat Advisories in Alaska” isn’t ancient, but it’s definitely not a normal thing to happen.

If ALASKA is having to think about these wild fluctuations, it’s no surprise those of us who do things outside are having to make adjustments.

[NoSuchPerson]

@crackerjack

That is not normal for us.

Weather is cyclical. There isn’t really any such thing as “normal,” if by normal you mean “the way it always is.” If you look at a long-term plot of temperatures in any location, you will see that there are periods of time when the weather was really hot and periods of time when it was not.

Is it hot right now? Sure. But it’s no hotter than it was in, e.g., 1909, 1934, 1953, or 2011 (Texas data). Quote from the description of the figure (created using NOAA data) that I pulled those numbers from:

The number of days ≥100° and ≥105° in particular were more common between 1910 and 1965 than they have been in recent years.

The current hot weather is not unique in history nor is it abnormal or unprecedented. Does it suck? Yes. Is it affecting my willingness to ride? Yes. But that’s the way the weather works.

[NoSuchPerson]

@fivestrideline

If ALASKA is having to think about these wild fluctuations,

If you want to talk about wild fluctuations in weather, go back and look at the weather there in the 1930s. Again, current weather craziness is not unprecedented.

[Nikki]

Thank you!

I love how the NEWS now puts deep red for temps that are normal for summer. 90 degrees 10 years ago was an orange, now it’s a deep red to make people scared.

Winter too. The keep changing the color wheel to make it more extreme when it isn’t.

[nutmeg]

No Such, you might want to notify the Google machine of your facts, since when I asked them for “noaa average global temperatures 1850-2025” it came to a somewhat different conclusion. The three-fold increase in the rate of warming since 1980 really stuck out. Their wee chart is really off according to your statements.

[nutmeg]

[LazyA1]

I applaud your efforts, and I hope we can get the message across! Before it’s too late.

[fivestrideline]

Yep. It’s not that we had one or two really hot or really cold days here and there - or even one or two heat waves or blizzards at odd times! It’s the overall trend, and the speed at which the yearly average is increasing. “Zooming out” really is enlightening - in a lot of sectors, not just weather.

Anyway. We can keep denying the facts in front of our faces as long as we want, right up until we cannot deny them any more. In the meantime, if we want to continue to ride and show all year, Know Better and Do Better is key IMO. Pushing yourself and your horses to heat exhaustion for some ribbon or medal is just plain NOT worth it - but that does not mean you can’t compete in the SE in the summer. It just means being intelligent in your choices, and some measure of intelligent acclimation to the conditions.

[clanter]

well the temperatures are going rise in Los Angles as

• the National Weather Service (NWS) is moving its official downtown weather observation station from the University of Southern California (USC) to the Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center at Dodger Stadium.
• The relocation is because the USC site is located about 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean, which can affect temperature, humidity, and precipitation measurements.
• The new site is expected to provide a better representation of the weather and climate of downtown Los Angeles.

others have been moved to places that of questionable practice

[nutmeg]

93F for the Youngster Cup in Aachen this afternoon. Poor colts and fillies, it is not always easy to find ice in those benighted countries.
JUST KIDDING
Off topic but look at the breeding on this one from Spy Coast. Scrumptious.

[crackerjack]

Ok so you don’t believe in climate change. Got it. That’s your prerogative but doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The science is there. Whether or not one chooses to believe it is because it doesn’t fit a narrative is up to them. Plus weather is different climate.

That being said all across the world- remember there’s a world outside of the US, temperature records are being broken.

Anyway no use in debating this because climate change deniers will keep on denying. 🤷

[MsM]

On a related note, what do you find best for keeping the rider cool? Are those rings that fit around the neck I see advertised useful?

[ParadoxFarm]

@MsM

Are those rings that fit around the neck I see advertised useful?

I have one of these, and never use it. Not because I don’t think it will work (I do!), but I just forget to get mine out of the freezer.