This summer is nice: hot and unusually dry in Southeast Texas, just as it was during my childhood. Normally summers have oppressively high humidity but it's dif

This summer is nice: hot and unusually dry in Southeast Texas, just as it was during my childhood. Normally summers have oppressively high humidity but it's different this year (so far). There is an almost constant breeze so I can walk around even in the sunlight yet remain comfortable. I drink lots of water and take extra salt. With the low humidity sweat evaporates immediately unless I am laboring. I fear however that this long hot and dry spell in SE Texas will result in something we haven't seen in decades here - a malaria epidemic: 1. we already have some cases not brought in from outside the area, 2. severe malaria outbreaks are sometimes preceded by an unusually hot and dry period such as we're experiencing, 3. malaria was once endemic here. The land has changed somewhat but we have flooding, heavy rains and their effects, 4. It is hurricane season and a hurricane would undo all the good things I described in the first paragraph.