Heatwave - time capsule thread

[KenAdams]

Thought I'd start this for people to look at in 46 years time so they know we didn't all keep calm and carry on, like we're hearing about 1976 now.

I dread to think what the temperature might be then.

So what do you want to record for people?

I'd like to say I can't sleep because it is absolutely roasting in Leicestershire. I've no idea how I'll cope tomorrow when I can't cope tonight.

I’m under a fluffy blanket right now. I was in central London on the hottest day ever recorded there (think it was 37.8?) and staying in an 18 bed backpackers hostel. That was an uncomfortable night but I enjoyed the sense of occasion/it being special somehow.

my weather app is only showing it as being 23 where I am right now. I know that quite high for 1am but it’s fine and I’m still not going without my blanket.

working outdoors this week but have a big hat.

I’ve just cycled home from work in central London at 1am, it felt very pleasant. DD’s school is online only tmrw and am not sure what to do about the dog, she only wees out the front of the house on the pavement, but it might be too hot.

A friend is working at a large festival building the stages so am a little worried about him, also it’s another friend’s birthday celebration on Tuesday evening so I am thinking where can we go that won’t be roasting!! Ha, reasonably calm but let’s see what tmrw brings!

I’m sat on my bathroom floor at 5.46am because it’s lovely and cool. We’ve all had a rubbish nights sleep and we are awake far too early.

The 1976 “heatwave” was around 25deg with a high of 30deg in some places. This heatwave is 35deg with a high of 40deg in some places, it doesn’t compare.

I've got up at 5.30 so can walk the dogs by 7 before it gets hot.

It's hot. I hope you have air con in the future. I'm going into the office and I'm going to sit in front of the cooling unit all day.

I wonder how many people, like me, didn't worry too much about it until reading the threads on here. It's the one thing I regret doing.
In 1976 it was easy to keep calm and carry on because they didn't have anything like this (and yes I know "the 1976 heatwave was nowhere near on the level of this heatwave" !!).

I'm ticking off every hour until it drops by 18 degrees on Wednesday. Every hour is another hour we got through and another hour closer to Wednesday.

I've woken up and it's quite cool in front of my fan but inexplicably my body isn't. Not being able to cool myself down does not bode well for later. We're forecast 39 here today.

For readers in 2064, please note that in 2022 school budgets were so tight they can't even provide fans for us in the classroom. A colleague has kindly brought in their own air conditioning unit for my primary classroom (2 long walls of windows).

I feel sorry for the 1 in 20 or whatever it is who have covid right now

Just woken up at 7.45am after a better than usual night's sleep. Going to make a cup of tea now and will put the fan on in the kitchen if it feels too warm but I doubt it just yet as it faces north and the sun doesn't come round til midday. Got plenty of ice in the freezer and I might put some wet flannels in the fridge. Am not panicking.

If I'm still alive in 46 years time, I'll be 97 and will have lived through (and hopefully remember) both of these crazy summers. The thing about '76 was the lack of let up. It went on for weeks. The tarmac melted. There were massive tanks of water at the end of the street, because there was none coming out of the taps. We had competitions to see who could get the biggest sheets of skin off in one piece! I've now got skin cancer. The Dr said the damage was done years ago. When I was a child. Stay cool everyone.

I made the mistake of looking on the Daily Mail website where they're screaming about things that 'could' happen later today.

People of the future: the Mail always has been and is a pile of scaremongering shite.

Quite. I had Covid mid-June when the daily temperature got up to about 23-24°C for the couple of days I was a bit feverish. That was bad enough.

I'm in London, it's 25 degrees now at 8am and the high has been revised down to 38. Practically me and my family will be fine DS1s sports day today has been cancelled which he's delighted about. Well drink lots of water and sleep downstairs rather than in the attic bedroom which is too hot.

The main worry for me is the horrible visceral reminder of climate change and the lack of political will to work on it. An article in the times today puts climate change at the bottom of the Tory memberships priorities.

I’m sat under a thatched roof and it’s blissfully cool in here, not hot at all (I’m in Rutland @KenAdams so near you). We slept soundly under the normal duvets last night. We don’t need to leave the house today until I have to tend the horse this evening which is going to be grim but I’m leaving my toddler with DH. He WFH full time and I’m not at work in the office until Weds which is fortunate.

Thatch is due to completely die out soon as farmers aren’t growing the crop and thatchers are few.
This seems like a massive mistake given climate change, it’s actually eco friendly and insulating and very nice to live under! I hope thatch is alive and well in the future.

I'm in London and it feels like a lovely warm summer morning at the moment. Commuting was fine and I've known hotter mornings than this. I slept well last night as it was a warm night but perfectly ok. Interesting to see how today progresses amid warnings that 'thousands will die'. I expect my journey home on the train to be pretty hot, but perhaps no hotter than the packed buses on train strike days.

Errrrr aren't threads on chat deleted after 90 days or has that changed now?

From the Independent:

The subject of a nostalgic recent documentary on Channel 5, the heatwave of 1976 reached its peak between 23 June and 7 July, a 15-day period over the course of which at least somewhere in England recorded a temperature of more than 32.2C.
The hottest day of the year proved to be 3 July, when the mercury hit an alarming 35.9C in Cheltenham.

i don't remember it being hot though, just dry with reports of stand pipes and my dad diverting the kitchen sink drain into a water butt. I was only 8 though.

DD and I slept downstairs on the sofabed last night.

At the moment it’s a beautiful morning: we had breakfast outside. I did wistfully think about being in holiday mode, where we’d be able to approach it totally differently – up at first light to go for a swim or see some ruins, back mid-morning for a large breakfast then sleep through the middle of the day in a dark, air-conned room. Up at 3/4pm for lunch and swimming and enjoying the evening heat.

It’s trying to conduct a normal British 9-5 in abnormal weather that’s the difficulty.

Obviously in 64 years they'd have found a way to retrieve it. Or we ask MNHQ to move it. Whichever is easier 😀

1976 wasn't overly hot, the lovely weather just went on for weeks. We holidayed next to a lake in Scotland and in the photos it looks like the Caribbean!

It felt like a proper long hot summer, but no different from, say, the Cote D'Azure.

I live in a valley, so the nights are always pretty cool. We've been sleeping under duvets as normal so far. Met office says that tomorrow it'll hit 38C during the day and 18C at night, which is an impressive 20C drop.

Fine so far. Feels warm in the house but fresh and nice

I’d like people to think about buying air con en masse as it will make the situation worse