Hot Numbers

Here we are, talking about the weather again. As most of you may know, we had another heat wave here, the second in 4 weeks. Temperatures reached 45 degrees Celsius, but there are some other numbers I find way more interesting to demonstrate how hot it got. First of all I got up yesterday at about 8 in the morning and it was 30 degrees. I went to the "periptero" (newsstand) yesterday evening at a few minutes before midnight and it still was about 35 degrees. Conclusion: It's not as much the peak temperature (which is impressive in itself), it's just not cooling down even during the night. Main reason: There wasn't any wind that could have brought colder air.

The weather pictures (lower right corner of my weblog) often do not show the peak temperature in all its glory, but browsing through their (wunderground.com report for Athens that is) stations stats, I found the interesting facts that some station reports the lowest measured temperature this month to have been about 21.6 degrees. In some countries that would be a nice summers day temperature... at noon. Here and this month it must have been during the cool morning hours before sunrise on a relatively "cold" day.

What effect has the heat on people? Obviously they complain. Everybody but me seems to have a/c (blackouts are happening, no wonder). At midnight, my neighborhoods streets are exceptional quiet, very few people outside, almost no sounds except for the whirring of the air conditioners fans. The heat empties the city.