We’ll admit it’s been hot ’n’ steamy here in the Chippewa Valley in the past week or so, with temperatures reaching into the mid-90s and heat indexes boiling past 100. Tuesday’s high of 96 degrees in Eau Claire was even a record for the day (and was just two degrees shy of being boy-band hot).

So yeah, the weather has been oppressive. But looking back in time puts extreme weather like this in perspective. The summer of 2013 has got nothing on the ridiculously, obscenely, downright dangerously hot summer of 1936. If you’re lucky enough to have a friend or relative who was alive 77 summers ago, they likely will tell you how lucky you are you weren’t alive back then. The nation was still in the depths of the Depression – and it was decades before widespread air-conditioning – when a historic heat wave struck.

And what a heat wave it was: In fact, six of the 10 hottest days on record in Eau Claire occurred during the month of July 1936:

RANK	TEMP.	DATE
1	111	7/13/1936
2	111	7/14/1936
3	110	7/12/1936
4	109	7/11/1936
6	107	7/10/1936
10	105	7/7/1936

In case you’re wondering, the other four hottest days in Eau Claire history were all in the summer of 1934. The bottom line: If you’re tempted to shake your sweat-soaked head in despair in the coming days when the thermometer passes 90 again, just be thankful the calendar doesn’t read 1936.