Heat treatment
Does anyone genuinely enjoy a heatwave? Like most people I like sunshine and warm-ish weather but beyond that not so much.
In the UK a heatwave normally means three or more days during which the temperature exceeds the mid 20s (Celsius). Above 30 (and without air-con) it becomes uncomfortable. Hit 40, as it did on two or three days in 2022, and it’s a struggle.
The hottest weather I’ve experienced was probably on my first visit to New York in 2005. It was so hot that Central Park was almost deserted and even the open air theatre closed its doors, citing the intolerable temperature. Thankfully, subsequent visits have been less demanding.
In 2017 Dan Donovan (who has worked with Forest as a designer and photographer for almost 20 years) experienced first hand the extreme heat of the Mojave Desert in California. According to Dan’s weather app the temperature varied from 41 to 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) but it was bearable, he says, because most places were air-conditioned.
My first experience of air-conditioning in a private house was also in America, in 1987. I was staying with a friend who was working in Washington DC but his budget limited him to a small house in which only one room - the main sitting room - had air-conditioning. I remember it because we’d walk in from the sweltering heat outside and within minutes of turning it on the room would be like an ice house. The rest of the house, not so much.
My first recollection of seriously hot weather was on our first family holiday abroad. In 1971 we flew to Portugal and I remember exiting the aircraft (it was my first flight as well) and being hit by a blast of warm evening air and the smell of fig trees. The following days were very hot, a huge contrast from our holiday the previous year when we went to the Shetland Isles.
In 1980 I went inter-railing from London to Athens and I’ll never forget how it got hotter and hotter as we travelled through France, Italy, Yugoslavia and, finally, Greece. It was so hot in Athens it was cooler to sleep outside on the flat roof of our hostel. Which reminds me, on my first visit to Washington DC in 1983 we were shown poorer areas of the city where, in the absence of air-conditioning, whole communities were forced to sleep outside during the hotter months because it was cooler outside than in.
Back home people of a certain age still talk about the summer of ‘76 when Britain experienced an unusually long period of hot weather that began at the end of June and lasted until the end of August, with a top temperature of 30.5 Celsius (87 Fahrenheit).
In Scotland, where my family was living, I remember it being endlessly sunny but temperatures were usually a few degrees less than the south of England. Also, where we lived, overlooking the River Tay, several days of hot, sunny weather would often result in a thick sea mist (known as a haar) descending on the local area. For the next few days, while the rest of the country was experiencing a heatwave, the temperature would drop and the sun would disappear.
Back in the Sixties, when I was at primary school in Maidenhead in Berkshire, we were taken outside on hot days and classes were conducted under a large oak tree. Occasionally classes would be abandoned and we would be taken to a local park. En route the teacher would stop at a corner shop and buy an ice cream for every child.
Talking of childhood memories, when I was a child the temperature was always given in Fahrenheit. Above 70 was warm, 80+ was considered hot or very hot, and above 90 … well, that just didn’t happen or, if it did, very, very rarely. I don’t know when the forecasters switched to Celsius (or Centigrade as I remember it) but it’s taken me decades to get used to the different scale.
Anyway, I am currently in Majorca where the daytime temperature is around 26-28 degrees Celsius (78-82 Fahrenheit) which is perfect because there’s a delicate light breeze coming off the sea, not to mention air-con in our bedroom so we are spared those sweaty, sleepless nights under an electric fan.
Meanwhile I was pleased to read that the Conservatives have vowed to repeal the de facto ban on air-con in new homes that was introduced by former Tory minister Robert Jenrick. I’m not on top of all the detail but I understand that the current regulations were introduced because there are allegedly better cooling systems than air-con which is not considered environmentally friendly or the most efficient way to cool your home. That may be so but, unless there is very good reason, I don’t believe governments should dictate how we keep our houses cool (or heated, come to that).
As for heat health alerts …
