The Sweatiest Cities in America

If you ever need to fill a swimming pool with sweat, and you need to do it in a hurry, you might enlist the entire population of Phoenix, Ariz., home to the sweatiest people in the nation.

Phoenix adult residents sweat so much that the city's perspiration could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool in less than three hours.

For the second year in a row, Phoenix has earned the dubious honor of topping the Top-100 Sweatiest Cities list, a ranking of the nation's heaviest sweaters during the summer months as determined by researchers at Procter and Gamble.

During a typical summer day in 2005, an average Phoenix adult secreted 26 ounces of sweat per hour while walking outdoors. Phoenix's average high temperature during the summer months—June, July, and August—for 2005 was 93.3 degrees Fahrenheit.

93.3 degrees Fahrenheit is not that hot. It was about 33 degress Celsius (91.4°F) in Taipei... at 9pm in May! Add high humidity, which is all of SE Asia, there's no comparison to the suffering... unless maybe you live in Miami.

Combining heat and humidity produces a statistic called the heat index, which measures how hot it really feels. Gooch also put together a list of the top 10 most uncomfortable cities based on heat index. From the top: Miami, Corpus Christi; Orlando; Phoenix; West Palm Beach, Fla.; Houston; San Antonio; New Orleans; Tampa; and Fort Meyers, Fla.

My mom is from Kuching, Malaysia, which is near Singapore. It's pretty much hot and humid all year round and taking three showers a day is not uncommon. At least we have cooler seasons in the U.S.