They’ve switched from “temperature” to “heat index”: Apocalyptic 150F heat dome smashes temperature records as the world bakes (msn.com)
“Apocalyptic” (another superlative adjective) coupled with “bakes”. Except, it is not close to the highest heat index.
Historical context:
Because of this factor, it was once believed that the highest heat index reading actually attainable anywhere on Earth was approximately 71 °C (160 °F). However, in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia on July 8, 2003, the dew point was 35 °C (95 °F) while the temperature was 42 °C (108 °F), resulting in a heat index of 81 °C (178 °F).[8]
The media switched to reporting “heat indices” instead of temperature. Partly this was because the NWS, which has calculated them for a long time, started to promote them as well. The heat index tries to capture how a hypothetical person would “feel” the heat due to temperature and humidity.
The heat index is often much higher than the temperature – and the media likes this because it generates more fear and panic – which is great as click-bait and selling eyeballs to advertisers. Furthermore, since most of us have no idea what a “normal” heat index is or was over recent years, it comes across as just a high scary number – that lacking context, is meaningless. But at least it’s scary!
In the past couple of years, the media also took to reporting “pavement temperatures” – which yield very scary temperatures in the 140 to 160 degrees range, but which are perfectly normal. I used the same NWS instrument that NWS Las Vegas was using to measure surface temperatures and discovered on a day in the 90s, at my house, various surface temperatures were – surprise – in the 140-160 degrees range. And it is normal. But you would not know that from the terrible quality reporting done on that.
Sadly, today’s media, in their own descriptions is about creating content mill fluff pieces designed for click-bait, viral sharing and selling ads. And much of it ranges from stupid to being wrong.
