The Urban Heat Island

Many, many years ago, in the late1980s and early 1990s, a friend and I used to walk our dogs in the park almost every day.  During the summer, we would start our walks a little later, when the air was cooling.  And sometimes stay till dusk, which in Lubbock, Texas, in the summer, is quite late.

We used to comment on the heat effect of the city on the weather:  Although sometimes rain would move towards the city, it would evaporate over the city. We are both well educated, intelligent women, and we could reason that the heat reflection from buildings and pavement would unnaturally heat the air over the city, and by doing so, allow it to absorb more moisture than it did in the surrounding fields and countryside.  But there was no scientific proof to this, as far as we knew.

I am also a NASCAR fan.  Some years ago, one of the regular announcers, Darrell Waltrip, talked about "the heat vortex" over a race track. His contention was that the highly heated air from the race track: the tarmac absorbing heat from the sun and the vehicles, the heat from the vehicles, and to a lesser degree, the heat from the human bodies in the race track confines (sometimes up to 250,000 bodies)  had an effect on the moisture in the air, and when there were light showers in the area, "the heat vortex" evaporated light moisture.

Tonight as I was watching The Weather Channel http://www.weather.com/, they commented on "The Urban Heat Island."  As they described this phenomenon, it was the same phenomenon, scientifically proven, that my friend and I had identified anecdotally, and that Darrel Waltrip had identified anecdotally.

It is amazing how science catches up to common sense and folk lore.