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"Extreme Heat" seems to be 37-40 degrees Celsius which is bafflingly mundane to me as an Australian who grew up in rural New South Wales. We'd pack 30 kids and
by shitloadofbooks 3mo ago
"Extreme Heat" seems to be 37-40 degrees Celsius which is bafflingly mundane to me as an Australian who grew up in rural New South Wales. We'd pack 30 kids and a teacher into an un-airconditioned classroom with just a ceiling fan and the windows open in that temperature.
I imagine the buildings there just aren't built to support that heat plus the body height of hundreds or thousands of attendees?
- winstonp 3mo agothe British are notoriously sensitive to heat. They'll call 30 Celsius weather a heat wave.
- jorl17 3mo agoI'm from Portugal and I start losing it at 25. 30 degrees is insane. Last summer my house got to 39, and I didn't have AC (it was broken). I think I'm still recovering.
- ornornor 3mo agoI had 40 Celsius today at around 9pm. Middle of the night now and it’s 34. It’s as cool as it’s going to get before it starts heating up again tomorrow. Where I live there are no laws on max temperature in residential housing so the owner (I’m renting) doesn’t have to do anything about it. Never mind the poorly insulated, black slate roof (I’m on the last floor) or lack of AC (I’d have to foot the bill anyway).
- wil421 3mo agoThat’s normal where I live in the Southeast US from late May to late September. Plus 60-99% humidity, I can see the air in the mornings. There’s something about 85F/30C and 80%+ humidity that prevents the temp from going much higher for a longer period of time.
- bavell 3mo agoYep, 9:30p here and it's 82F/80% humidity. Still pretty mild compared to the deep summer months (Jul/Aug)!
- golemiprague 3mo ago[dead]
- zoenolan 3mo agohttps://youtu.be/mMqkuAb-HYg https://youtu.be/mMqkuAb-HYg
- el_io 3mo ago[dead]
- human305893 3mo agoEuro buildings are built to keep heat in. Aus buildings are leaky tents.
- eisa01 3mo agoThat should actually help you also with AC: Keep the cold in, and reduce the electricity costs
- lazide 3mo agoFor some reason they seem allergic to AC - see the rest of this thread.
- basisword 3mo agoCOST. People don’t have the money to spend installing aircon to save themselves from a couple of weeks of discomfort per year.
- lazide 3mo agoAt the point there is a noticeable mortality spike, it’s not just a few weeks of discomfort eh?
- basisword 3mo agoStill doesn’t solve the cost factor. If you don’t have the money you don’t have the money. And if you barely have the money you’re probably going to take the risk because the risk is still very low.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- Klayy 3mo agoand regulatory hurdles in many locations, you can't really install AC in many buildings because there's nowhere to put the external unit
- weightedreply 3mo agoWe need a humidity comparison to go with temperature. I grew up in a humid city and summers were unbearable. Now I live in a dry climate and 30°C is pretty comfortable.
- AstroNutt 3mo agoTemperature Humidity Index. Or as they now call it for normies, "feels like temperature"
- maxerickson 3mo agoHumidity makes a big difference in how stressful the temperature is (wet bulb temperature accounts for this somewhat). The age of the attendees and the tendency of the building to heat would also be factors.
- anthk 3mo ago40C in the Atlantic Spain with the Foehn effect (weather for today and tomorrow) would make 30C in Australia a joke. The humidity here it's hell. You feel 35C like ~42C in dry climates.
- eloisius 3mo agoA lot of it is acclimatization. In Taipei this morning, at 9:30 it’s already 31C and 73% humidity, forecasted to hit 37C by noon. My first year living here this was unbearable, but now it’s tolerable. It’s just summer, not a spurious heat wave.
- GeoAtreides 3mo ago>It’s just summer, not a spurious heat wave. what are you implying here
- eloisius 3mo agoThat in Taiwan 30-35C weather with high humidity is the norm during summer.
- GeoAtreides 3mo ago"not a spurious (false) heatwave" is a funny way to say it...
- tzs 3mo agoHow does the humidity in rural New South Wales compare to London?
- gonzo41 3mo agoDepends, In northern NSW, the heat it humid, in the south / west it's usually dry. It gets hot, like opening a oven door, but it's not a wet humid heat that kills you.
- nomilk 3mo agoAnd that was after running around a semi-arid playground playing 'tips' or touch footy during recess and lunch!
- contingencies 3mo agoNo worries as they'd had their vegemite for brekkie providing all the salt they need to offset the constant sweat. None of this soft modern electrolyte bullshit, just beer dregs on toast.
- germandiago 3mo ago[flagged]
- cjonas 3mo agoI've always assumed there is some sort of "acclimation" period, maybe even related to the conditions you grew up in. I much would rather spend a time outside in -40c (with proper outerwear) than 40c. I'm relatively healthy but I feel like my body shuts down at anything above 36c
- fc417fc802 3mo agoSame. There definitely seem to be strong genetic factors (just based on my personal experience TBF). I also notice I adapt substantially after two to three weeks of consistent exposure. But it does have to be consistent - hiding out with AC 24/7 prevents it.
- jdkoeck 3mo agoThat’s because you pay attention to your body and you’re not in denial. Above 37 degrees, your body cannot regulate itself, and it starts being seriously uncomfortable before that. Going outside for a run when it’s 40 is unbelievably stupid.
- throwup238 3mo agoMy understanding is that full heat acclimatization requires elevated core body temperature for 30-60 minutes a day for several weeks to really kick in and it’s easily lost during winter. Someone going largely from air conditioned to air conditioned building during the summer months may not even build up much of a passive acclimatization. I don’t do as well in heat so for the summer hiking months in California so I have to do a two week sauna or hot bath protocol, otherwise I struggle really badly during the season. YMMV of course.
- germandiago 3mo agoFrom the comments I hear and depending on people I met from sifferent countries, I would say that yes.
- jcranmer 3mo agoPeople tend to rely on air temperatures when in reality the lethality of heat is probably more linked to the wet-bulb temperature. The human body has a natural resting temperature of about 37°C, and metabolism of course generates more heat constantly, so we constantly have to shed that heat. When the temperature is low, we can rely purely on conducting the heat into the atmosphere to shed the heat (which is probably why internal body temperature is higher than the atmosphere!). At higher temperatures, conduction is less efficient, or sometimes even adds heat load into the system (at above 37°C, obviously), so we start relying on evaporative cooling (i.e., sweat) to cool us down. The wet-bulb temperature is the minimum temperature that can be reached by evaporative cooling. So when the wet-bulb temperature is in the mid-30s °C… people start to become literally unable to regulate their core body temperature, and the heat is lethal. Wet-bulb is largely a combination of the temperature and humidity, but unfortunately, it's not typically reported in most weather reports, so people go off of the air temperature (and the humidity) that is reported. Which is a long-winded way of saying "the humidity matters a lot for how much a given temperature is bearable." I don't know what environment you come from purely by rural New South Wales, but my first guess is the semi-arid and thus low-humidity bush regions of the state, which means the apparent wet-bulb temperature of 37-40°C would be a lot lower than the equivalent 37-40°C for most of the humid continental climates of Europe.
- jesse_faden 3mo agoDew point is a much better measure of the oppressive, muggy, sweltering feeling than humidity. The dew point in Australia ranges in the 5ºc - 15ºc range at which 30ºc after sunset feels vastly different, way cooler than South East Asia where the dew point is constantly above 24ºc.
- Noaidi 3mo agoI imagine people who lived in the UK for generations have genes that are adapted to a more mild, cooler climate. https://www.cell.com/trends/genetics/fulltext/S0168-9525(20)30070-6 https://www.cell.com/trends/genetics/fulltext/S0168-9525(20)...
- tomjakubowski 3mo agoMuch of the population of Australia are from those same groups.
- seydor 3mo agoYeah we ve reached stupid levels of weather scare. France did have some extreme temperatures over 42, but 40 is a typical Mediterranean heat wave, not Armageddon
- butchkass 3mo agoIt’s litterally the hottest month of June ever registered in France, beating a 23 years old record. Very typical heat wave indeed. EDIT: actually yesterday was the hottest single day ever in recorded french history, and it happened in the merry month of June, not August. Truly your typical heat wave. EDIT2: I was wrong, the record is not actually 23 years old, but… 1 year old, as the record had already been broken in 2025. Can’t wait to get my next dose of very typical 44C temps in may next year.
- strogonoff 3mo agoLooking just at ambient air temperature is an easy mistake to make. I used to be like that, always surprised why people whine so much near the coast in winter with their comfortable numbers and thinking I’m superhuman compared to them. I stopped when I learned first-hand that their negative 17 degrees feel as bad as our negative 30. If you live in a town in New South Wales where the average humidity is less than 50% in the wettest (or, should I say, least dry) season, you might not understand what it feels like in London where the average doesn’t dip below 65% any time of year. Today London will feel at least 4 degrees Celsius hotter than Hong Kong. The latter is already an extremely unpleasant place to be in these conditions (and had in fact its own very hot weather warning issued), and unlike London it has a very strong culture of air conditioning. 4 degrees might seem like not a lot, but heat extremes are a tricky beast. Once your body cannot evaporate heat fast enough, you’re literally toast.
- fatnoah 3mo agoI'm in the northeastern US and it's very common for weather reporting to include the Heat Index (https://www.weather.gov/ama/heatindex https://www.weather.gov/ama/heatindex) which takes temperature and humidity into account.
- kuerbel 3mo agoI guess it's different if you are used to it. 40 degrees is absolutely not normal here. Even 35 is very unusual.
- fellowmartian 3mo agoIt’s not different if you’re used to. Heat acclimation is a real thing, but it won’t magically beat physics if wet bulb temperature hits body temperature.