Uncharacteristic June Heat???

[Jules]

Malta is boiling right now. A few days ago we had the hottest June day in a 100 years.

Yesterday I spent hours on the couch at home, barely moving due to the lethargy caused by the oppressive heat. You feel drugged.

Leaving the confines of one's house for a one minute walk to the grocery store to get a carton of milk feels comparable in difficulty to reaching the peak of Mt Everest.

What are things like in the rest of Europe? Pretty sure this heatwave isn't staying put over the Mediterranean!

And the USA?

[blackcauldron85]

Do you have air conditioning in your home, Jules? I hope you can try to stay comfortable! <3

There is definitely a worldwide heatwave going on. I'm in the US. Here in Florida, it was 84 degrees (Fahrenheit) yesterday (Florida should be getting hotter in the next month/2 months); I'm from Massachusetts (Northeast US), and my friend up there said yesterday it was 95 degrees (Fahrenheit). So for up north to be warmer than Florida...it definitely happens, but right now it's because of the heatwave!!

[Disney's Divinity]

I've been lucky so far this summer. It's been fine so far until the past week. I've been praying for rain because all the flowers are looking scorched. I can tell things are generally hotter these days than they were a decade ago because there are more insects than there used to be and the spiders are getting bigger... The past two years I've been seeing gigantic spiders all over the place. Before now, they never used to be bigger than two inches usually. They freak me out.

[Jules]

Do you have air conditioning in your home, Jules? I hope you can try to stay comfortable! <3

There is definitely a worldwide heatwave going on. I'm in the US. Here in Florida, it was 84 degrees (Fahrenheit) yesterday (Florida should be getting hotter in the next month/2 months); I'm from Massachusetts (Northeast US), and my friend up there said yesterday it was 95 degrees (Fahrenheit). So for up north to be warmer than Florida...it definitely happens, but right now it's because of the heatwave!!

I do have air conditioning in one room. The problem is I cannot spend all day in there, nor do I want my electricity bill to rocket skyward. (It's high enough as it is! My bills have doubled since January 2020 ...)

I read in the news that Canada reached 50 degrees (Celsius) last week!!

Canada!

Where it is freezing in the winter!

Not even in Malta has that temperature ever been recorded as far as I know.

Btw, this heatwave is now officially the longest lasting one in Maltese history! What's happening to our world?

Thankfully it seems to me dissipating now and temperatures are slowly returning to normal. However, these last two weeks I noticed something else odd, besides the extreme temperatures.

Basically, it has been consistently sunny, but the sky looks weird. It's not really blue, it looks like a very pale greyish-blue and sort of hazy. It feels rather claustrophobic, and I've never known such a phenomenon to last this long.

I've been lucky so far this summer. It's been fine so far until the past week. I've been praying for rain because all the flowers are looking scorched. I can tell things are generally hotter these days than they were a decade ago because there are more insects than there used to be and the spiders are getting bigger... The past two years I've been seeing gigantic spiders all over the place. Before now, they never used to be bigger than two inches usually. They freak me out.

I'm not afraid of spiders, but even to me a 2 inch spider sounds creepy, let alone larger! The largest spiders you find here would be the daddy-long-legs, which, I think you find everywhere on Earth.

Are these spiders dangerous? Or are they harmless?

Not that I blame you for feeling creeped out even if they're harmless! But if so, at least you can feel 'safe', and technically these spiders may serve to keep under control the populations of potentially hazardous insects, right?

[Disney's Divinity]

No, I meant normal spiders that are getting bigger and bigger. There are grand daddy longlegs here, too, but I'd be happy if more of those were around, since they kill other spiders that are deadly.

[DVDBuff1]

Basically, it has been consistently sunny, but the sky looks weird. It's not really blue, it looks like a very pale greyish-blue and sort of hazy. It feels rather claustrophobic, and I've never known such a phenomenon to last this long.

I can't speak for the rest of the world, but here in Oregon (which recently had an intense heatwave), the sky has been like that too.

[Elladorine]

We can see the mountains from our house, and the desert is right on the other side. Which means we get a mix of the heat and the humidity! And even with the triple digits we’ve been hitting, we had to have a planned outage in our neighborhood earlier this week. So no AC, refrigeration, or internet during normal business hours for the day while the power company did some maintenance. Which means I had to figure out where I could take Little Dude out for entertainment while we’re all still recovering from the pandemic.

We ended up doing a lot of shopping that day! A lot of getting in and out of the car, so I made sure we stayed hydrated and tried to linger inside cooler stores. I’m fully vaccinated now but still wear a mask (which of course makes the heat even more difficult). But other than that, we’ve been used to mostly staying inside at home anyway, even though the state is slowly opening back up.

With it being as hot as it is now, I’m really dreading August..

[Jules]

Sigh. Everything is topsy-turvy.

It should be winter, but we're getting these lovely sunny days with temperatures reaching 22 degrees Celsius. It almost feels like summer - you could go to the beach for a swim.

In the meantime, I hear that the USA is experiencing record-breaking cold, and many people have died already. Since many of you are from the USA, I hope you're alright.

[blackcauldron85]

That is pretty topsy-turvy, Jules. Here is Sunny Florida it's been 20°-40° Fahrenheit (-6° to 4° Celsius per Google?). My family in New England yesterday said it had been in the teens. Enjoy your heat!!!

[Jules]

Glad to hear your temperatures are manageable, Amy. I don't know what norm for Florida is at this time of the year, but -6 degrees Celsius should not be life-threatening.

I heard the sad news yesterday that in parts of the USA people were freezing to death in their cars. It reminded me of a certain, rather horrific scene in Roland Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow.

[Jules]

Haven't posted in a while!

How are you all doing? Have you all been cooked to perfection?

It's incredibly hot in Malta right now, but from what I hear it's even worse in neighbouring Italy, as well as Spain and Greece.

I hope you're alright D82. The same goes for any other active Spaniards we have around here!

Ah, the joys of human-induced climate change.

[blackcauldron85]

I get sweaty walking my dog even in the morning...also it's summertime in Florida so that's to be expected. I haven't been keeping up with the news too much, but I know there are wildfires around the world due to the heat, and people who are homeless are having a really rough time, as I imagine lots of people are who can't afford to keep the air conditioning on, if they even have AC to begin with.

[Jules]

Am I correct in assuming Florida is humid, Amy?

Humidity sucks. It makes summers feel hotter and winters feel colder.

[blackcauldron85]

Yes, Florida is humid!!!!!!!

[Jules]

Yes, Florida is humid!!!!!!!

Ouch!

Well, Malta is pretty humid too, so I suppose we can think of each other when the sweat from our skin refuses to evaporate and we feel hot, sticky and generally icky.

[blackcauldron85]

Lol. Bring on winter! The cold never bothered me anyway.

[Jules]

Make sure you release your cape and make a cute little eye roll when you say that.

I like the cold too! (Not that it gets too cold here ... I have yet to see snow in my life. )

[Elladorine]

We went to the Crystal Cove beach yesterday. It was cloudy and even slightly foggy, so the heat wasn’t that bad.

I didn’t get to play in the ocean much though, because I fell on some rocks on the way down! Pulled a muscle in one of my legs and I’m pretty sure I broke at least 3 of my toes on the other. Typical for my klutzy self, lol.

I did step ankle deep in the water upon arrival but quickly realized it wasn’t a good idea, since the fall broke my sense of balance. We actually had to get the attention of a lifeguard because I eventually realized I wouldn’t be able to walk back up the cliff to the car. Rather embarrassing, lol … they sent a pickup truck with emergency lights to go fetch me.

And even though I was constantly spraying myself with Coppertone SPF 50, after we finally got home I realized my skin has been burned to a crisp. So besides dealing with temporary limited mobility, I’ve got a sunburn in 113° heat.

Is it fall yet?

[blackcauldron85]

I fell on some rocks on the way down! Pulled a muscle in one of my legs and I’m pretty sure I broke at least 3 of my toes on the other.

That's awful- I'm so sorry!! Are you feeling okay? Did you go to the hospital?

[Disney's Divinity]

The heat is awful. We sort of got off easy here in June, but July has more than made up for it. I especially hate the days when the sky has almost looked smoky and hazy lately. I think that must have something to do with the wildfires in Canada and the smoke being blown down the coast, it's never quite looked like that before. Those images of New York a while back were scary to look at.

But I admit, I would hate summertime even if it wasn't hotter these days than it used to be. Winter was always my favorite season growing up. As I get older, I like it less when I think of ice on the road, so Fall / Spring is nicer to me now.