Beating the Heat

As some parts of the world are at record low deep freezes, the south-east of Australia is in the midst of a massive heatwave. Melbourne has had 3 straight days of over 41 degrees Celsius including a top of 44 degrees today (111.2F) and many people reporting their cars on the outside are registering temperatures of 45-48degrees (113-118F). Our emergency maps are dotted with yellow, orange and red triangles showing where all the bush fires are and there are not many parts of the state that isn't covered (luckily, for now, my little piece of paradise is not affected). Train services have pretty much come to a stand still because of buckling tracks and breaking down air conditioning systems in the trains, power failures have affected almost 100,000 homes and businesses because the city is using 10,000mW of electricity, 4000mW more than a usual summer's day. And they actually called the Australian Open tennis to a halt because of the heat, with almost 1000 spectators treated for heat exhaustion. And we have another day of 44 degrees predicted for tomorrow.

The great thing about the Melbourne heat is that it's dry. The heat prickles your skin and you can actually get through the day. The humidity is 17-25% and we are getting thunderstorms with trickles of rain in the evening raising the humidity a little higher. But it's still hot. The overnight temperatures are getting to about 29 degrees (84.2F) at 6am, but have been as high as 36 degrees (96.8F) at 3am. We are lucky to be living in a ground floor solid brick apartment and it's much cooler inside than out, and we are surviving with a couple of fans around the place (no air conditioning). We went down to the beach a couple of nights ago, but you actually come back hotter and stickier, because its a fair hike up to the carpark and you get hot again and more annoyed because of the sand sticking to you. There's nothing that beats a cold shower on days like this.

Our dog Dexter has resorted to chewing on ice-blocks and lying on the tiles and not doing much at all. I try to take him out for morning and late evening walks, just to get him out of the house, but we don't go very far because he just wants to lie in the grass and not move at all. Who can blame him?

But it's not just our pets that are struggling… there have been pics of koalas sitting in a pool lapping at the water because the gum leaves are so dry, there are stupid parents leaving kids inside locked cars to get their bottle shop fix, and there are retailers who open up to a ghost town of a street because no one is daring to go outside to browse or buy their essentials, unless its in some air conditioned supermarket or shopping mall.

I am one of the silly ones who actually loves this kind of heat, but I also love extremely cold as well. To me, it makes you feel alive with the elements on your skin. But I am also one who's not stuck out in it for too long… I was driving in my car for about 6 hours on Tuesday when it hit 45 degrees on the temperature gauge on my car, but I have the luxury of air conditioning, and having that balance of being inside the car and out makes it liveable. Believe it or not, I actually had one of the best night's sleep I've had in months last night… with the window open slightly, lying on top of my doona, head at the foot of my bed and the fan blowing quietly. I mentioned it to one of my work colleagues, and she said she was a freak too, because she finds herself sleeping blissfully too on these kind of nights.

So one more day of extremely heat before we have temperatures back in the low 20s (70sF). I might actually be happy to see it go by tomorrow ;)