"It's gonna be a scorcher!"

I remember hearing those words often every summer throughout my childhood and always thought of it as code for "Get your bathing suit on. We're going to the beach!" I really didn't know what scorcher meant - actually, I wasn't even sure it was a real word (Mom was one for making up words to fit the need of the moment). Since then I have looked it up and saw that it merely means "a very hot day." But the phrase has stuck with me all these years and as I drove to the office this morning, AC blowing hard, I glanced up at the thermometer in my rental car and saw that it was alread 80 degrees at 8 o'clock in the morning. I thought to myself "wow, it is gonna be a scorcher!"