Not trying to sound salty, but just for general reference. A heatwave in the UK starts somewhere around 23C. At 20C they are already anouncing in the stations for people to carry water at all times.
one of those things I can't help but chuckle at. 73 F (23 C) is like my ideal temperature!
Just suck it up, 30c is manageable, even if you're used to it. any humidity? That is the worst
You realize they put out the warnings for a reason, right? Like... people die when temperatures get that hot in northern regions. People actually die. But nah, just suck it up right? Suck it up granny, quit yer dying over there and just buy a fan!
You are discounting the personal factor. I'm 28C inside and 36C outside. Pretty comfy for me and not running Air conditioner yet. In fact I set the Aircon at 20-23 most of the time. A hot day would be 40+ outside.
Nah, but go ahead and laugh when 80F is considered hot. We laugh in our tank tops and shorts when you guys say 50F is cold.
I went back to the Norwegian summer following the summer of Black Saturday in 2009, where we got a few 46c days. That was a shocking summer even by Australian standards. When I got to Norway it was around 35c - unusually hot for them; my family really couldn't handle it. I just found it mild and pleasant... they all looked at me weird.
The reverse was true when I moved to Australia many years before that. Arriving in June, coming straight out of the Norway winter I couldn't understand why Melburnians were complaining so much .. to me the "winter" felt hot!
Of course I also complained that they should close the windows in the office because of the road noise, only to discover that double glazed windows aren't standard everywhere. They really don't know how to build houses here.
I've seen below freezing point temps riding to work now so they really ought to introduce some proper building codes ... it's just sad how much energy is wasted pumping heat through the metre wide gaps under the main doors. Really, Australian builders have NFI about energy.
> These thresholds vary by region, but an average threshold temperature is 30 °C by day and 15 °C overnight for at least two consecutive days.
As a German, I would say anything over 38 °C during the day and over 20 °C overnight is a "heat wave", and I think a lot of people down south, maybe most humans on this planet, may not consider this too warm. I remember visiting the Emirates for a week during summer... or working in the kitchen of a summer camp for disabled people in Oakhurst, New Jersey during the summer, without an AC in my room. The camp's kitchen's giant refrigerator room was a favorite meeting place for anyone who had access. The only way to sleep was with a fan running at full speed blowing right at me. Maybe that experience shifted my view of what a "heat wave" is. Oh, and in the Emirates they have "cooled swimming pools". I thought it was just a joke, but no, they really artificially cool the water of their swimming pools. I went into the Gulf water - for half a minute, then I went straight into the cooled swimming pool that I had scoffed at. Having grown up in East Germany and only knowing the Baltic I never knew that the sea could ever be too warm even to enter for more than a minute.
Yesterday or the day before, reading UK news (BBC or The Guardian) as I often do, I saw the announcement of the "heat wave" and the warning of temperatures over 30 °C(!) and thought exactly the same as OP, even if he got the exact number wrong.
In some places, buildings are designed on the assumption that temperatures at night will be significantly cooler, and give the building an opportunity to shed heat collected during the day. When that assumption is violated, the building remains hot and continues getting hotter each day, which is dangerous to people inside.
By the way, I found by personal experiment that all it takes is one layer of something like cloth in front of the stone to prevent if from heating up. I completely cover my large balcony on the outside now, including the thick stones. In all previous years they always stored to much heat during the day that the balcony remained hot well until morning, heat radiating from all sides, making it almost unbearable to go there (or to open the wide door) even when the outside air temperatures had dropped below 20 °C. The difference this summer is huge. So it does not take anything fancy or expensive at all, just prevent direct sun exposure of those heat sink surfaces (like solid concrete).