To think people don’t seem to understand how hot it is predicted to be next week?

[Toohot22]

On threads expressing concern re the heat, people keep saying ‘what do you think they do in hotter countries’?

According to my BBC weather app, next Monday and Tuesdays predictions are:

35 in Lahore, Pakistan
32/33 degrees in Miami, Florida
33 and 32 degrees in Kingston, Jamaica
29 degrees in Mali (which is the worlds hottest country, apparently!)
30 in the Maldives
38 and 35 in Spain.

The current predictions for me are 36 and 37 degrees.

AIBU to think some posters don’t realise we are talking about temperatures hotter than some of the hottest countries in the world!?

I live in Connecticut, where it regularly reaches the 90s in summer. But we have air conditioning, I walk my dogs at 6am, and when school is in session, they have a cut-off of 87 degrees for outdoor recess. So yes, other countries are hotter, but many make adjustments during the height of summer.

Living in Australia is very different, the pace is slower, the houses/buildings have a/c, the materials used to build are heat resistant, designed to keep you cooler.

In your dreams!

What a load of rubbish.

Most Australian houses are poorly designed and built, including the material that is used. They are like ovens in summer and freezers in winter. Many houses have no insulation. Lots of houses have no air conditioning. For houses with evaporative cooling - these are useless on high humid days.

When there is a heatwave (ie multiple days of mid 40 degrees), there is often power blackouts or brownouts. No power for many hours.

Where are your facts to back up the claim about thinner blood?

Oh do fuck off dear.

I've visited Oz a couple of times and I thought about immigrating but I know I would not cope with the heat.

So I don't live there.

We are not talking weeks at 40degrees we are talking temperatures from 22 to 40 degrees over night.

School uniforms here have trousers or skirts worn with opaque tights and a compulsory blazer - all man made fibres.

When you have fucked off, wait for a heat wave put on a polyester shirt and skirt, a pair of opaque tights a blazer made from man made fibres and see how you cope.

School uniforms here have trousers or skirts worn with opaque tights and a compulsory blazer - all man made fibres.
When you have fucked off, wait for a heat wave put on a polyester shirt and skirt, a pair of opaque tights a blazer made from man made fibres and see how you cope.

Is it the fault of Australians that schools in the UK have such stupid archaic uniform rules? Maybe it's time to get into the 21st century.

@ZombieMumEB - You are wasting your time trying to convince MNers that Australian houses are not built for heat (or cold) - I've already tried that. I'm in NZ, but it's the same here. Apparently the heat, the houses, people with SEN, people with illnesses, the elderly, people with fair skin, people who have to go to work, the electricity, the melting tar are all so much worse in the UK than in any other country on earth. Oh, how they suffer!

My MIL house in Melbourne is sweltering in the summer heatwaves. No aircon. In the winter, every door is shut and the gas heater in the lounge is on high. Every other room is like a fridge. Brrrr. It’s one of those 50s brick places. Like this one. Except unchanged for the last 70 years! www.realestate.com.au/news/retro-revival-sees-buyers-embrace-the-suburban-classic-brickveneer-home/

This is her heater. Well, an older version. We had one as kids too! I’m taking a trip down memory lane here! I remember my brother burned his bum once standing in front of it after his shower. He had a 3-line mark across his cheeks for years.

www.theheaterman.com.au/product/rinnai-2001-in-built-gas-flued-heater/

I had a similar heater in my childhood home. Lounge room would warm up, but the rest of the house was freezing cold.

Every house I've rented in Australia (6 rentals before we built) had no air conditioning, and a gas wall heater that only heated up the lounge. No insulation in the roofs or walls.

I have had 4 pregnancies with no air conditioning over summer. Wet towels and sticking my feet in a tub of cold water worked well. I'd stick the kids in the bath with cold water throughout the day.

Australian houses are designed on English homes - hence why so many are poorly designed. It costs a lot more money to design them for summer and winter. Double glazed windows are rare and expensive. Houses have carpet too, so I am not sure why some English MN think otherwise.

It's very common for tar to melt on some of the roads in Australia.

It is all about perspective though.

I will always remember the heatwave leading up to the Black Saturday fires. All the leaves on the plants in my garden were dry like paper. We lost power for a few hours a few days before the fires - in the middle of the afternoon. House was extremely hot and I moved my 4 kids to the coolest room of the house, and tried to entertain them in the sweltering heat, whilst listening to the radio for possible fires, and being ready to evacuate if needed.

The actual day of the fires was horrific and many houses in my town burnt down. Temperature reached 45 degrees.

For the actual firefighters, battling against these extreme fires, in their PPE, temperatures were so much higher when close to the flames.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_bushfires

Britain will become like Max Max on Monday. Just a desolate, parched wasteland where people are desperately fighting over the remaining supplies of petrol and fresh water. A dystopian nightmare. I can't wait.

It's not about fault, it's about the UK not being set up for hot weather.

As for Australian homes being based on English homes, really? How many have an upstairs?

Unless it is a Queenslander when it is all upstairs.

You can't buy a house in the UK and then have it transported to the land you own.

I've never seen terraced housing in Oz, obviously I have not been everywhere.

I also remember verandas or some form of shading is really common.

Lots of terraced houses.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraced_houses_in_Australia
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-10/design-history-of-sydney-s-iconic-terrace-house

Plenty of houses with an upstairs. Some of these modern houses are referred to as McMansions.

Most houses aren't built with verandas nor eaves. They tend to be all boxes in new estates. We had to pay thousands more to have eaves added to our roof line.

www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-04/australian-houses-losing-in-heat-management-design/9287188
www.domain.com.au/news/australias-homes-arent-built-for-a-hot-climate-will-perform-poorly-as-temps-rise-experts-919282/

We are not really equipped as it’s not really been an issue previously.
A lot of countries used to hot weather have stone houses/ and or air conditioning./ shutters swimming pools lol

Most of us have a fan or two at best in our homes.
i think the construction of homes and air conditioners will have to become more common place in the future.

I live in the Valencian region in a very Spanish large town, and office hours are inline with the rest of Europe now. The long siesta is long gone. The only ones who do finish early are civil servants and the banks and they don’t come back. Small, local shops close, but even some of them have started to stay open. The supermarkets, pharmacies and bigger stores all stay open all day.

I am Australian and grew up in Australia before coming to the UK 18 years ago. Truth is I am finding the heat quite bad here, even when it has not yet reached 30 where I live. I am from regional Victoria which has a relatively low humidity and the humidity here in the UK is getting to me. The issue as I see it is that because the UK simply is not used to this heat and because we do not have the infrastructure to deal with it it makes things more complex and difficult. I am not taking the forthcoming hot weather next week lightly at all.

Re the Black Saturday fires previously mentioned my parents were living in the bush at that time and I recall the utter fear of watching the fires on the news. I had the country fire authority radio on the internet during the day (Australian overnight time) so I could call my parents if the fire came their way. It did. My parents fire plan was that my mother and younger sister would collect the animals and leave early and dad would stay to defend the house. The fires came so close that my dad jumped into the middle of their dam (along with fleeing wildlife including snakes) when miraculously the wind changed and the fire turned and took out our neighbour's farm.

I remember the country fire radio reporting the fires and the locations they were with advice. Very matter of fact. I recall I started physically shaking when a perfectly matter of fact presenter said; '[Name of town]. We advise. Too late to leave'. i.e. too late to evacuate.

My parents sold up a few months later. They had had enough of being scared every summer. Now they live in a coastal town.

Anyway- that is alot of waffle but the mention of Black Saturday brought it all rushing back to me. I am loving the warm weather here right now, but equally know that the UK is not really used to it and in many ways people and the infrastructure are not prepared for it and that can cause great problems. So I hope that people are safe and there is not as much disruption as is being predicted.

When I say I am finding the heat bad I do not mean I do not enjoy it, but that I am finding it very hot, in away that does not correlate with the temp on the dial. It feels 'hotter' if that makes sense.

You are falling for the media drama. Take a look at these two comparable forecasts from the same months - one from the 80s and one now. Can you guess which one is from the 80s? and look at the numbers - 35 degrees is the hottest. And look at how the colours and the feeling is so different in pic 1 than pic 2. Pic 1 is very positive and pic 2 is like a hell world - but both are dealing with similar levels of heat. Just sit back and be ready to be hot for a while and stop falling for the scare mongering on tv and in the news.

That would be fine if we weren’t predicted to be five degrees hotter than the 80s one!

I’m capable of understanding what a red weather warning means without shitting myself, thanks. Love.

I live in the Valencian region in a very Spanish large town, and office hours are inline with the rest of Europe now. The long siesta is long gone. The only ones who do finish early are civil servants and the banks and they don’t come back. Small, local shops close, but even some of them have started to stay open. The supermarkets, pharmacies and bigger stores all stay open all day.

Yes I always hear people say about the long siestas in Europe. I lived on a very hot European island for 10 years. Long gone are the days when anyone had a siesta - no one can afford to be sleeping in the middle of the day anymore. Schools might officially close at 1pm but the after school clubs go on til 6. Most people use these as they are at work and the clubs are very cheap. There is no air conditioning in schools. I went through 2 pregnancies with no air conditioning or shutters on windows. Seems a lot of assumption that everyone abroad has these. Even those that do have air con installed many people can't afford to actually use it now. (The Uk isn't the only place struggling with the cost of living either) Yes people are used to being hot but there are still heatwaves where it's significantly hotter than the norm and you don't get the fuss we're seeing here.

The temperatures on the red map aren't though

I've seen this image posted on several different threads/Facebook/Instagram and they all have different numbers on 😅 its completely fabricated to get a reaction out of people

Surely not!

Imagine that , someone reposted something off Facebook without thinking if it was real or not. Quick look at the one on the looks nothing like the forecast in the 80s .

I am convinced that australian homes arent fit for their main weather conditions. I was just puzzled as to why australia didnt make any adaptions to the heat when some countries do.
A few posters have said about the need cheap housing and a legacy of english building stuff.
I hope going forward australians get access to better housing.

If they want any tips, my uk house is pretty good in the heat. The kitchen for instance faces north and the windows are quite small and shaded and the floor is tiled. We have awning over the south facing window in our other room.