There are far too many true believers among journalists, all eager to join AP’s Seth Borenstein in declaring this the long-awaited summer of record-breaking heat waves. As it turned out, the recent brief spell of uncomfortably hot weather passed quickly through the country’s mid-section, on to the East Coast, and out over the Atlantic.

Yes, there are no guarantees that more hot weather will not follow in the footsteps of the mid-June event. The previous year gave us a comparatively moderate summer, at least in most top-tier states. Denizens of the rural Midwest barely saw highs reach 90 degrees. F. by the end of summer 2024.

Reader, please recall that our forebears in the 1930s were not so lucky as we are today. Air-conditioning had just been invented. The air conditioning that existed then was limited to a few scattered upscale restaurants and movie theaters.

The second and third weeks of July 1936 still stand as the singular heat wave that culminated among a series of dust-bowl-ridden summer droughts beginning in 1931. The recurring drought persisted until nearly the end of the Great Depression decade. Clouds of dust rose each summer from the parched wheat fields of Kansas and Oklahoma, turning the midday sun red as seen from the prairies all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

City dwellers in the Midwest, whenever they could,........

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