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Marc Giauque reportingIt may seem like a no-brainer: Warm temperatures are made warmer when trees and shrubs are replaced by asphalt and construction.
By at least one estimate, Utah's nights are getting warmer as more goes in. A thermal imaging study by NASA backs it up. But, it also shows some places not too far away, where you can find at least a bit of relief from oppressive temperatures.
In West Valley, Just off the Bangerter Highway, a woman works inside a convenience store beside a large asphalt parking lot with the windows exposed to the afternoon sun.
"Don't want to work, you don't want to go out."
Not much different in her home a few blocks away.
"My house, yesterday it was 84 (degrees) was as cool as I got it"
A few miles to the east, a ladies club learns the ins and outs of a card game, sitting at a picnic table next to Millcreek. A few hundred feet higher in elevation, even the direct sun is more tolerable here.
But when it comes to the official temperatures logged for Salt Lake City It's back to the valley floor. The National Weather Service's instruments sit between two runways at the airport. It's also in one of the lowest spots of the valley.
Larry Dunn, with the National Weather Service: "The afternoon maximums are going to be at the lowest elevations in the places with the least vegetation. So the airport meets that criteria"
So if you want to get cooler go up. Meteorologists say for every one-thousand foot increase in elevation, the temperature drops by about 2-5 degrees. That means barring local breezes, there's not much difference between the bench and the valley floor. But there is a difference where there's water and more vegetation.
Thermal imaging done by NASA shows cooler surface temperatures around waterways and vegetation, much hotter where there are dark rooftops, streets and parking lots.
Larry Dunn, with the National Weather Service: "You could have this change where you had a lot of vegetation and the moisture that comes from vegetation, and you somehow replaced it with desert or with pavement, it's going to warm up."
The EPA says adding even relatively little vegetation can impact the temperatures by several degrees But don't fool yourself; 101, relatively speaking, still doesn't feel that much cooler than 104.
