NO FED2 STAR NEXT WEEK
by Hazed
Never mind the newsdroids – I am the one who needs a week off. Here in England we are suffering through a prolonged heatwave; temperatures in London where I live topped 34 degrees Celsius (93 Fahrenheit) a few days ago and the weather forecast shows no respite from the sweltering sun for another few weeks at least.
Summer temperatures like this are unusual in this country, and when they do happen they rarely last for more than a few days. Our weather is best described as “changeable” because it lies at the confluence of four major weather systems, with the most common weather forecast in the summer being for “sunny periods and scattered showers”. This is why we always talk about the weather –there is so much of it to talk about.
So we are not geared up to deal with heatwaves. Roads start to melt, railway tracks buckle, un-air-conditioned homes become unbearable, even offices that do have air-con can’t cope with the extreme heat, and as far public transport… well, it’s so hot on the tube (that’s the subway in London) that some lines are seeing temperatures of over 40 degrees.
All this is why I am feeling tired and in need of a week off from doing the Fed2 Star. We’ll be back on Sunday August 12.
Stop press: I wrote the above on Friday morning. By that evening the country was experiencing torrential rain and thunderstorms. The heatwave is due to resume on Monday but meanwhile we are enjoying a welcome respite. The bad news is that it prevented me from seeing the blood moon of the lunar eclipse on Friday evening, so I had to content myself with looking at pictures of it on the internet, such as the ones in this gallery: https://www.theguardian.com/science/gallery/2018/jul/27/2018s-blood-moon-seen-around-the-world-in-pictures
