I called up Jeff Goodell because I wanted a kind of weather report.

Jeff lives in Austin, Texas.

And when I reached him, he told me it was relatively cool outside.

And by that, I mean 90s.

90s is cool?

Yeah. When you see a number with only two digits instead of three, it feels like the depths of winter.

Jeff has spent the last few weeks sweltering under the Texas heat dome.

It's so hot that when he goes to his car, he says,

he's got to brace himself before touching the steering wheel.

We have a public swimming pool, a really great place called Barton Springs

in the center of the city that stays open until 10 o'clock at night and you go there at 9

10 o'clock at night and it's jam packed with people and you know the water is perfect and cool and

it feels like when you jump in your body kind of sizzles because it's it's so hot and then you're

cooling off so fast so it changes everything about the rhythms of your life.

Yeah.

Do you feel like until this year, maybe even this year too, suffering through the heat has been kind of a badge of honor in Texas?

Yeah, I think, you know, you hear that a lot here. You know, Texas is always hot. You know, Texas tough. But one of the interesting things that's happening is that even people who kind of are, you know,

feel that way. My wife, I didn't grow up in Texas, but my wife did. And, you know,

she's talking about how, yeah, Texas is always hot, but this is different. And the sort of

heat macho, the sort of like heat cowboy thing, I think, is being really challenged here

because people are scared. People have a reason to be scared.

Last month, a postal worker in Dallas collapsed and died in the heat. Multiple hikers have been killed,

...