Wicked, wicked hot down under

[debgeisler]

This sounds like a joke...but I doubt people like smofbabe are laughing much.

It is so hot in Australia (how hot is it?) that weather charts have been changed to add layers of heat-intensity color. Based on forecasts, the province of South Australia is due temps exceeding 50°C./122°F.

The worst parts of South Australia are now deep purple.

Deep Purple: I remember when that was a band, and not the state of global warming.

And it is feared that more colors will need to be added, as forecasts might tip over the 54°C allowed for on the map.

Excuse me while I step outside into the 38°F/+3.4°C weather on the back deck to have a smoke.

Comments

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

I figure we're the canary in the coal mine for the rest of you!

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

They usually don't set fire to the coal mines, however!

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

No, but when the canary drops dead of heatstroke, it should be a warning to the rest of you to invest in air conditioning and some really intense sunscreen :->

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, given my loathing of heat and whitest-white-girl skin, I have both.

Pretty damned scary, though. I see you've gotten some relief (at least until Friday) there. Looks like a roller-coaster ride of temps for you and Stephen.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Melbourne isn't so bad for the next week or so. The north of the state is pretty sucky, though: Mildura isn't going below a high of 95F all week, and one day is 107F.

Luckily, after 6 weeks of attempts, we finally got an A/C guy to call us back and he's coming by this morning to give us a quote.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I've been in 123dF heat before (when I was twelve, in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and only briefly, not day after day after day after), and to combine that miserableness with all those wildfires is just terrifying. I read somewhere where one of the (many) problems is that the ambient temperature is now higher than that required to gasify the eucalyptus resin, which makes it much more combustible. It's like the perfect storm of wildfire season down there.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

That's just gross, the napalming of eucalyptus resin. Yuck.

I would basically die instantly if dumped in that kind of heat. Even at 12.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

My mother, who had had gall bladder surgery (this was 1971, so not the way they do that now) several months previous to our expedition, had such a bad time with the heat that she had to get off her mule and find some shade and water for a while before she could make the last mile of the trip. Fortunately, Phantom Ranch has cabins with evaporative coolers, and we were up and out of the bottom of the canyon well before the heat of the next day. But she was one heck of a trouper.

She still says that she was just waiting for someone to tell her she couldn't go, but we'd made the reservations for the trip almost a year in advance (long before she found out she'd have to have surgery), and "I wasn't going to let my child go down there without me!"

That trip was my twelfth birthday present, and something I'd been after my parents for since I first saw the Grand Canyon at age six.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Trouper indeed. I remember when my mom had her gall bladder removed - it was many weeks of recovery to complete health for her (as opposed to my own removal, when a week saw me back to rights).

Sounds like a lovely (if sticky) memory for your 12-year-old self to pass along to you. :-)

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

My mother was astonished when I went back to work three days after I had mine out -- and while she's got a scar from stem to stern, as she says, I received four tiny butterfly bandages' worth.

That trip was one of those events in my childhood that I measured time from.