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Comment by throwaway5752 | Hacker News Reader

Not to be pedantic but does it really qualify as a heat wave? Essentially the whole planet (with a few exceptions) is 2-3 F hotter than the last 100 year avg and the 3-4 highest month ever measured. This is really just new normal temperatures in a continuing upward trend.

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I’m sure lots of people in the UK would like to believe that a summer like this is the ‘new normal’. But I can attest to the fact that the last time temperatures and rainfall were like this in the UK was in 1995 and before that 1976 (which I don’t quite remember, but I was there)

Oh yes. We rarely get a runway of heat like this for such a length of time.

Plus, even if not technically a heatwave, we'd still call it one as laypeople. We are built to withstand the cold and wet (buildings, wardrobes, etc). It becomes extremely uncomfortable in hot weather no matter how much we like to moan about shite weather.

Yes, because a heatwave is defined as a period of high temperature relative to the normal.

I live in the UK, and the weather over the last six weeks has been exceptionally dry and warm compared to our usual summer weather [1]. It might not be a heatwave in some technical sense, but here on the ground that's how people are describing it.

[1] "Three fine days and a thunderstorm"

We haven't had a hosepipe ban around here yet so it's not a proper heatwave :)

Totally, it's not only heat wave but also lack of rain. Normally it rains every 3-6 days in Wales, last rain longer than 3minutes I remember was in beginning of May. Last weather with these temperatures I remember is form 2011, but lasted only 3 days in September.

" Essentially the whole planet (with a few exceptions) is 2-3 F hotter than the ... 3-4 highest month ever measured. "

Can you elaborate on this?

I wouldn't be able to until later, but it's fairly easy to find the details under the NOAA's site. They have visualizations and methodology, amazing public resource.

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