Cold…that’s the main weather word for the week. Tuesday morning lows could dip into the single digits in some valley locations as our skies clear out. Sunny skies on Tuesday won’t warm us up much, with all areas struggling to get over the freezing mark. Another wave moves through the region early Wednesday, bringing back a chance of snow showers through Thursday. Weak systems pass through off and on through the rest of the week, with high temperatures varying from the mid-30s to the mid-40s.

Since it’s so cold this week, let’s warm things up with this question: “Our high desert summer sun is intense. What is it about the sun that makes it so physically draining while one is lounging about in a deck chair, but when the temperature is only 80 degrees?”  I’ll refrain from talking about spending too much time lounging in deck chairs, and tell you why direct sunshine feels so hot.

The sun can heat you up in two ways. First (and this is how it heats thermometers that read that 80 degrees mentioned above), the sun can heat the air, either directly or indirectly, and then the air transfers that heat to your body by direct contact. That’s called heat transfer by conduction. But the air isn’t really that efficient in conducting heat. Tomorrow I’ll tell you a better way.