Columnist Susan Snyder: Ranking has scent a message

Tuesday, June 22, 2004 | 10:16 a.m.

I smell a rat.

As summer officially opened this week, Las Vegas was rated as the nation's 10th sweatiest city, while El Paso, Texas, ranked first.

The part that smells fishy is that while Las Vegas' rating moved up only two places -- we were 12th last year -- El Paso jumped from 28th sweatiest city in 2003 to the sweatiest town in America this year.

What, they got a sudden surge of heat this year? Maybe they recruited some sweat-soaked stringers?

We are too, hotter. In fact, I figure by July only Satan will sweat more than the average Las Vegan (with the exception of our local politicians).

An up-to-the-minute, online weather forecast showed that at noon Central time Monday, the temperature in El Paso was 90 degrees with 15 percent humidity.

Amateurs. In Las Vegas, where it was 10 a.m., temperatures already had climbed to 92 degrees with 12 percent humidity.

El Paso's forecasted high for the first day of summer Monday was 96. Ours was 103.

Maybe those El Pasoans (is that a word?) need to stay in more.

The Top 100 Sweatiest Cities List is released annually by Old Spice deodorant, which obviously hopes for and receives some unavoidable, obligatory publicity.

Information accompanying the list says the average El Paso resident produced 1.09 liters of sweat per hour during a typical summer day in 2003. That's more than three 12-ounce soda cans of sweat, the study says. In fact, El Paso residents produced enough sweat in a four-hour period to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool.

By now you should be asking yourself some questions.

How do they measure such a substance?

Why would anyone measure such a substance?

How much money would it take for you to measure such a substance?

Is this any way to encourage our youth to do well in math? As a practical application example, it's kind of scary.

There are no answers to these questions because: (a) the spokeswoman for the study is out of town until Thursday; and (b) we don't really want answers to these questions.

The study continues sliding down its slippery, sweaty slope of credibility by naming Greenville, S.C., as the nation's second-sweatiest city, up from 43rd last year.

The first day of summer brought Greenville 80 degrees, which is sweater weather by our standards. However, humidity was 83 percent, which is a shower by our standards.

For us, 80 degrees and 83 percent humidity would be akin to showering in a sweater.

But with these huge jumps in sweatiness, one has to wonder whether Greenville and El Paso residents made an effort to be especially sweaty on the days they were measured. Did they run to the corner barbecue joint rather than drive their air-conditioned cars?

We may never know. We certainly will never care.

The other sweaty cities that eclipsed Las Vegas are, in order of third through ninth: Phoenix; Corpus Christi, Texas; New Orleans; Houston; Miami and West Palm Beach, Fla. (a city where the price of anything makes a person sweat.)

Perhaps these people spend too much time outdoors and not enough time in the air conditioning.

Maybe they need more casinos.