Heat Chatter

 Over the past two weeks, I've noticed a lot of social media chatter about summer heat.  This approaching week, in central Germany....it's supposed to get back up to the 37-to-39 degree temperature (98 to 102 F).  

The amusing thing....journalists and some scientists want to hype this, and they ask in public how humans being can possibly survive this (over dramatizing to the extreme).

There are five basic things that a typical German would do:

1.  Stay hydrated (with water, not beer/wine).

2.  Keep the shutters/curtains drawn to your apartment in the daytime.

3.  Use a fan....particularly at night.  

4.  Limit your time in direct contact with the sun (particularly true in the mid-day hours).  Stay in the shade whenever possible.

5.  Dress in appropriate clothing for the heat. 

Useless things?  I heard two stupid things in the past week.  One.....put your sheets in a refrigerator/freezer an hour before bedtime.  This provides probably six minutes of cool feeling as you start to fall asleep.  After the six minutes?  It doesn't help.  Second, eat salads only for dinner/evening meal.  The idea is to eat cool foods, and avoid anything that was cooked/heated.  This might work for a day or two.....but most people won't go for a six consecutive day heat-wave, and live off salads like that.

How German heat waves go?  A front comes from two areas.....either from the south bringing in high temperatures, or from the Icelandic region with moderate temperatures.  Fronts move in....fronts get moved out.  

The worst I've seen?  2003....a front lingered over Germany for about four weeks, and every single day was 35 C to 38 C.  Climate change was discussed hour by hour on public TV.  Then one day.....a new front finally pushed out the heat wave, and we went to 25 C in a matter of twenty-four hours.  

The average heat wave?  If you pay attention to the weather business....you tend to get a couple of days of 23-to-29 C moderate weather, then a couple of days of 30 C to 38 C.  The negative to this is that your concrete building/house....absorbs the heat, and it takes usually two days for a house to 'lose' the heat it trapped.

A beer-garden becoming a retreat?  I would suggest that if you have a decent pub in the neighborhood, with shade....then leave the hot house after your come home from work, and spend two hours sipping through a beer or two. 

None of this is rocket science.