Reader blogs  Blogs home Staff blogs Weather Watch  Another heat
wave settling in over northeast Kansas  It's like a heat wave...
Of course, there are a lot of choices in descriptive heat words.
Some that shouldn't be uttered--even on the web, still others
that you just have to throw out because anything that contains
the word "moist" shouldn't even be used.  So, we're left with
hot, miserable, steambath, sauna, scorcher, etc. But what about
heat wave? What is the difference between a hot summer day and
what makes a heat wave?  According to the Glossary of
Meteorology, a heat wave is: "A period of abnormally and
uncomfortably hot and usually humid weather.To be a heat wave
such a period should last at least one day, but conventionally
it lasts from several days to several weeks." At one point, heat
wave was defined as 3 consecutive days over 90 degrees. Of
course, that would mean that every July and August is one big
heat wave.  Up north, that 3 days over 90 is the rule, but
everywhere else it's modified to