Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

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Having lived in Singapore for five years (2012-2017) (and worked out in the field for about 50% of that time) I can say that Singapore is one of the milder places to live. It never ever gets particularly hot (I genuinely can't recall a 100+ degree day in the entire time I was there), and the humidity, while, "sticky" is never really extreme. The thing that gets to you is that the climate never seems to change (with the exception of a lot of rain) - it's always pretty humid and in the high 70s/low 80s, 24x7x365.

Once you acclimate to it though - it's fine - I used to do a 5 mile run every day from Anson Road/GardensByTheBay/MBS - wasn't an issue.

I worked in Dubai for about 6 months, and there were days there that I honestly thought I might die if I didn't get somewhere cool. And it wasn't the days that were 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 Celsius) (though those were intense) - but the 100-105 degrees at super high humidity that would knock you on your back. Your entire body would be instantly bathed in sweat and it wouldn't help.

I was fine without Air Conditioning in Singapore - would sometimes turn mine off and just open the windows, but I can imagine anyone doing that in Dubai during the hot season.

> I can say that Singapore is one of the milder places to live. It never ever gets particularly hot

Singapore is almost exactly on the equator. UV readings get up to 11 each day (extreme), whereas the most I ever saw in say SF was 5.

Your experience is one experience, mine is that it's a sauna every day of the year. I've experienced extremely hot days in terms of subjective experience of WBT as explained in article. My gf, a local here, also decries the heat. I personally cannot go running before 5:30pm. I got a major sunburn on my back at 5:30pm the time I tried running shirtless at east coast park. Granted, I am pale.

But what are you comparing it to? Anywhere tropical (or even mediterranean) is going to seem hot compared to SF. Not being able to run until the evening and getting sunburn at 5.30pm are standard in a mediterranean summer too

As a fellow Singapore resident, it's undoubtedly hot. The parent's point was that there are places like the Gulf that are unquestionably hotter.

I once visited Kuwait in August, and it was 52 degrees in the shade with near-100% humidity. I genuinely do not understand how some people survive there today without aircon, much less how they will do so if temps go up a few more degrees.

But it is also close to the ocean which is usually much more livable than anywhere inland in Malaysia or Indonesia.

" the most I ever saw in say SF was 5."

Really? London is 6 today, was 7 last week and 8 earlier this year.

I do also concur with the GP that Singapore is relatively mild as far as equatorial/tropical climates go. India, the Middle East, the Philippines and even Australia are sometimes much more oppressive.

The hottest day ever recorded in Singapore was 37c, whereas London is 38c and SF is apparently 41c. Of course, Singapore is more humid (and thus higher WBT) - but it's also much more consistent. In theory that would make it easier to acclimate..... but then Singaporeans seem to run their AC set to freezing.

It is unintuitive, but equatorial locations are usually stable and relatively moderate. They will tend to be uncomfortably warm year round, but never experience the temperature swings of locations much further north or south.

https://images.app.goo.gl/P4YtYRLvT5XVcn168

Look at this map of max temperatures and note that the equator runs through a band of relatively low max temperatures: Indonesia, northern South America, and the more southern part of Africa show bands of conspicuous coolness. The hottest max temperatures are in places like southern North America, India, Northern Africa, and Australia; locations that are in fact very far away from the equator.

The max temperatures of a place is caused by many things, such as proximity to water and local wind currents, but one driving reason is relatively simple: because of the tilt of the earth, every day on the equator is 12 hours. North or south of the equator, on the summer solstice, you can get 15 hour days, depending on latitude. The summer is a period of continuously intense solar heating. Again, there are other factors, but the sun is the driving force.

San Francisco is slated to just about hit 10 today.

Living in both San Diego and now Denver, they hit 11 quite regularly.

Singapore is also really cloudy. Definitely not "Sauna" like Dubai (or Washington DC on a bad day) - but non-stop "Sticky". I was always wet, but would work outdoors for 4-6 hours/day doing field survey work across the entire island.

In the time I spent in Dubai (about six months) in comparison, I had to seek shelter from the heat/sun a half-dozen times, and came close to heat-stroking a bunch of times. That was after 4+ years in Singapore.

I drank a lot of water in Singapore - but never, in a million years would I have gone on a trek like MacRitchie reservoir in Dubai - and in Singapore I took my 65 year old mother through the entire loop.

Just completely different environments - Singapore is not the type of environment being discussed in the original article.

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