Hot, hot, hot...

emeraldking

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There's a heat wave going on in Western Europe...
Eventhough, I'm mixed Indonesian, it's not even funny for me anymore... But that's also because I have to be careful for my heart, lungs and blood with this heat. The climate we have overhere with the current heat, makes it uncomfortable. When I was in Mexico last year, we also had these high temperatures but with a different climate than ours, it was doable.
 
The heatwave here ended overnight.

A Pakistani friend and our Romanian daughter-in-law have both been struggling despite being used to even hotter temperatures. It's the humidity which is the issue - being an island surrounded by water it gets quite humid here.
 
In Feb 1978 I boarded a plane for Saudi Arabia where I had accepted a job. There was a blizzard in NYC shortly before I left. The city was virtually shut down and I was trying to shop for suitable clothing for the desert. My job and apartment where on the West coast of the country in Al Kobar just south of Dammam on the Gulf.

I thought I knew what hot weather was until I hit my first summer. While the operation In which I was pout in charge was batching close to 200,000 cubic meter of concrete, I also got stuck with having to do the punch list for a civil works project the company had done for a major power substation.

Part of theat set up was a huge covered car park. It had no sides just roof. I set up a command post in the car park and I happened to put a thermometer on the table, To get the work done I had every worker from clerks to cooks and everything in between working. I felt that I could not asked the men to do the work and not be out there with them. We were there for 3 days. In the shade of the roof that thermometer topped out over the 3 day at 129, 130 and 130F aka 53.89, 54.44 and 54.44/ It was also humid for the desert.

I took a two week vacation over the Xmas/New years season, When I returned Saudi Arabia had some of the biggest rain storms in decades. Everything flooded. Nothing drains there and I spent my final months in Jeddah running the yard. The water ran down the mountains outside of city, through the city and into the red Sea. In the midst of the rain I watched a guy watering the tress planted outside one of the palaces. It was Thursday which was his day to water and despite the fact there was about 18 inches of water on the ground there he stood with a big hose watering the water.

Btw, it takes about 15 minutes sitting out at the pool I could use during my lunch break to get a nasty sunburn.
 
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I was in London for a heatwave before the pandemic, and what struck me was how there was little infrastructure to cope with it. Nothing was designed to take that heat into account, much like older housing in my city, Montreal. You've had some bad ones since, so I hope some elements of planning/preparedness have adjusted. There, I found myself in temperatures that would have been difficult at home, but that were absolutely brutal there.

I had my heart set on finally getting to dig through the British Natural History Museum on that trip, but it was a hazy sea of sweat in there. Even the Charles Darwin statue looked like it was perspiring, and it was marble.

I used to have trouble after our Montreal heatwaves, because older heaters would sometimes stick in the on position when the room was hotter than I wanted the water to be. I would unplug them as soon as it heated up, and leave them off for a few weeks.
 
I remember the 2003 European heat wave when 10,000-15,000 French citizens died. Talk about lack of infrastructure!
 
The heatwave here ended overnight.

A Pakistani friend and our Romanian daughter-in-law have both been struggling despite being used to even hotter temperatures. It's the humidity which is the issue - being an island surrounded by water it gets quite humid here.
Speak for yourself. Just been outside (21:20) and its still 28 degrees in the bits that have been shaded all afternoon.
Rain and cooler weather forecast for tomorrow - which the Bing adverising machine is trying to force me to click (to take somewhere else) by announcing temperatures to plummet tommorow :sick:
Independent forecast does show 10 degrees cooler, but I suspect nobody will be reaching for their jumpers or turning the heating back on.
 
I had even 50°C in the shade when I was in Luxor, Egypt... No fun there with that heat...
The heatwave here ended overnight.

A Pakistani friend and our Romanian daughter-in-law have both been struggling despite being used to even hotter temperatures. It's the humidity which is the issue - being an island surrounded by water it gets quite humid here.
That's the point, the humidity differs elsewhere...
I remember the 2003 European heat wave when 10,000-15,000 French citizens died. Talk about lack of infrastructure!
I remember that... For it was that hot in our country as well. And yes, sadly a lot of vctims caused by the severe heat.
 
Speak for yourself. Just been outside (21:20) and its still 28 degrees in the bits that have been shaded all afternoon.
We've had a cold northerly wind all day. I was actually shivering outside in a T shirt this afternoon.
 
Just been in the garden with the dog. It felt like it dropped a couple of degrees when it got dark and a gentle breeze came up for about 10 minutes before subsiding again. It was fairly pleasant out there, until I was reminded why my pond fish thrive, despite the fact that its been years since I stopped giving them food ;)
 
Just read an article about the various heatwaves in the northern hemisphere titled, "June Is the New July."
 
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We're having coolish breezy weather here. Maybe a La Nina or El Nino summer? I'm not quite sure how that works. I'm not complaining, but low 70Fs is not the shorts wearing temps of a few days ago. Much better than 90F+ we often get, but too windy for grilling. It's early days, I'm sure it'll be HOT soon enough.
 

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