New Orleans has only two seasons. Summer lasts for nine months of the year and is followed by three months of what amounts to little more than a warm fall. Spring and winter have not existed since the last ice age, casualties of the city"s unfortunate proximity to the Tropic of Cancer, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico. Year-round heat and humidity combine under a sweltering sun that beats down on the Louisiana Delta to sap energy out of its unwitting victims. On the occasional days when the temperature cools, it rains. Thus the cycle of humid mornings and balmy nights perpetuate themselves. During the hottest months of the summer, the most unbearable time of day falls somewhere between late afternoon and early evening, before winds from the Gulf of Mexico replenish the suffoca
