The cost of good weather
I’ve met a good few people who certainly have! They’ve loved the hot weather, which hit 27 C in Cork on Monday. It was still 24 C at 7pm which was still very warm!
It’s certainly been a pretty long, dry spell for us, despite the rain we got on Tuesday morning.
Our neighbours in the UK have been getting incredibly hot temperatures. It hit 40 C in London on Tuesday!
What’s been described as a ferocious heatwave has hit Northern Europe and the UK too. The UK hit its highest ever temperature of 40.2C, according to the UK Met Office. In France, extreme heat warnings have been issued and there’s been scores of deadly wildfires in France, Portugal, Spain and Greece which have forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes.
Record July temperatures have also been reported in the Netherlands.
Perspective changes everything. My youngest is just over a year and he’s been sick for the last two weeks. He hasn’t had bad symptoms really but he’s had a runny nose and a temperature for a lot of the lsat two weeks. He’s now developed a very bad cough and his breathing has worsened.
So for him, the hot weather is a curse, something to be mitigated which restricts him. He loves being outside in the garden playing but we can’t really let him out as it’s been too hot. It’s tough being sick at the best of times, but it’s much more miserable in hot weather. So for us, this has been a period of weather to get over.
Other people have said that they are loving the hot weather. But should we be celebrating it when large parts of the world are literally on fire right now?
Large parts of Europe have been suffering very high temperatures for the last few weeks with loads of deaths and mass evacuations.
The World Meteorological Organization said Europe’s heatwave may last until the middle of next week adding that such events could occur with greater frequency in the future. “The question that everybody is asking looking ahead is -when is this going to end?” said Robert Stefanski, chief of Applied Climate Services at the WMO.
Spain is facing the last day of a more than week-long heatwave, which has caused more than 510 heat-related deaths, according to estimates from the Carlos III Health Institute.
Are we ready for the major changes in our climate? The German environment minister said recently that his country has begun to rethink preparations for very hot weather, drought and flooding.
Have we?