As we enter the hottest few weeks of the year, remember that Mississippi has one of the hottest heat indexes in the world.
People think it gets hotter as you move south, but that’s not true. As you move south, the days get shorter which decreases summer temperatures.
Right now the Jackson heat index is 106. In Belem, Brazil, which is at sea level on the equator, the heat index is 97 degrees.
There are three main factors that affect hot temperatures. The first is the number of hours of sunlight. We get 40 percent more sunlight in the summer in Jackson than in the winter.
The second is elevation. Nairobi, Kenya, right on the equator, has year round temperatures in the 70s because its elevation is 6,000 feet. Same with Mexico City.
The third is the angle of the sunlight through the atmosphere. Jackson is tilted toward the sun in the summer, so the sunlight hits the ground more directly.
Jackson’s year round temps average 68 degrees. That’s perfect, But we do have hot summers and mild winters.
If you ask Northsiders, they are split on whether they prefer summer or winter. The winter temperatures are milder, no doubt, but the days are so short you can’t fully enjoy them. And you can always put on more clothes.
Summers are steaming hot, but it’s still pleasant in the early morning and night. Ideally, you should get up at 5 a.m. and enjoy the mild outside weather from 6 to 10 a.m.
Most cars in the south have tinted windows, which really helps. I drive a 1965 poppy red Mustang with no tint at all. This is great in the winter. The sunshine keeps my car warm and toasty, but it means I need reflective heat shields in the summer, which I apply religiously.
With cracked windows and my heat shields, I keep my car relatively cool. There’s nothing that makes the summer more unpleasant than hopping into a car with an interior temperature of 140 degrees. Such temperatures can and have tragically killed infants and toddlers inadvertently left in the car for even short periods of time.
The stultifying Deep South heat indexes stymied development of our region for decades. When AC became widely adopted, the Deep South boomed from 1950 onward, becoming the fastest growing region of the United States.
The rise of AC also wiped out mosquito borne illnesses such as dengue and yellow fever and malaria. With AC, you shut the windows and that kept the mosquitos out. (My great grandfather, a planter in Charleston, Mississippi, died from yellow fever.)
I think the birthday of Willis Carrier, the inventor of modern air conditioning, should be a southern holiday each year.
The rise of AC dovetailed with the development of electricity, greatly improving our lives. During the hot summer months, Mississippi consumption of electricity nearly doubles.
For the last 15 years, the consumption of electricity and the price of electricity has been stable and in line with border states.
That’s about to change big time as Entergy Mississippi plans to spend $3 billion to feed the new Amazon data centers, which will slurp up almost as much electricity as everyone else on the grid.
Entergy Mississippi will borrow the money at 6 percent and get a 10.5 percent guaranteed return on top of that. That’s $500 million a year, a thousand dollars per year for each Entergy Mississippi customer. Ironically, that’s exactly how much Bezos paid for his latest 417-foot yacht, Koru.
That’s enough to buy Bezos a new yacht every year. Maybe our geniuses at the Mississippi Development Authority can segue that into a new yacht building facility for Jackson.
Another three billion or so and we can dredge the Pearl and Bezos can dock on the reservoir. Just think of the multiplier effect!
It’s a win-win for everybody, especially the 20 percent of Entergy Mississippi ratepayers living in poverty with barely any disposable income. What’s another thousand dollars a year for AC and electricity to them?
