As regular readers for the past 10 years know, Happy Trails finds a nice shady place to hunker down during Arkansas’ steamier months. The nasty temperatures usually begin in mid-July, scorch their way through August and linger into early September.
Combine the temperature with debilitating humidity, and we frequently have heat indices in the sweltering triple digits. That’s a miserable time to be tromping through the woods with mosquitoes, chiggers, ticks, those nasty little no-see-um midgies that get under your sunglasses and, the worst, those biting flies that dive-bomb you for yards down the trail.
How nasty can it get? The state record is 120 degrees, set at Ozark on Aug. 10, 1936. The average July high in Little Rock is 92.5, with 92.6 for August. September’s average drops from 90 to 80 degrees by the end of the month.
The record high for Little Rock was 114 degrees on Aug. 3, 2011. But it was the miserable summer of 2010 that was dubbed “Arkansauna.”
If you must get out on the trails, go early and late, take plenty of water and stick to the cooler paths along the creeks and lakes.
Happy Trails will see you in the fall, when sanity returns.
Video: ArkansasOnline.com/happytrails
Know a good trail for a hike? Email
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
ActiveStyle on 07/27/2015