I'm sure some of you have seen the international headlines or the new UN climate warnings about the heat dome over India right now. The IMD (our weather department) has issued red alerts across my region (the northwest/central belt). Yesterday, a town near me recorded 48.2°C.
I want to explain what 48 degrees actually feels like when you live in a developing country, because it is terrifying.
You can't just "stay inside and run the AC." The power grid simply cannot handle the load of millions of people trying to cool down, so we are dealing with rolling blackouts. Imagine sitting in the pitch dark in a concrete room that has been baking in the sun for 12 hours, with no ceiling fan, while the ambient temperature inside is still hovering near 40°C at midnight. You don't sleep; you just pass out from exhaustion.
The taps are running dry because the heat evaporates local reservoirs and water usage spikes. People who have to work outside-street vendors, construction workers, delivery drivers -are collapsing. Even the water coming out of the cold tap during the day is hot enough to literally brew tea.
It feels like we are living on the absolute razor's edge of what the human body can endure, and it's only May.
For those of you living in other countries, or even cooler parts of India-what is the weather like for you right now? I genuinely just want to hear about someone being cold, or feeling rain, just so I can remember what it's like.
This is a post I saw today from r/india and I thought I'd share here. It really broke my heart.
Absolutely horrifying.
https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/1tq4exk/it_hit_482c_118f_in_my_state_in_india_today_the/
the nearest i came to that was sometimes hitting 35C (95F) in a downtown concrete block illegal apartment with no A/C. i worked outdoors, physical labor in the heat during the day and at least had a big box fan running by my head on full blast (so loud) when i would lay down for the evening.
"You don't sleep; you just pass out from exhaustion." <- took me right back to that mattress on the floor.
i would try to lay as still as possible, exhausted, eyes closed. entering these weird twilight states of something like dreaming. the only comfortable part of the day would be the pre-dawn, where the temp had finally dropped below 80 and it was time to get up for work again. i was young and in pretty solid shape those days, and it was permitted to be stoned at work most of the time, so that's what i did. i could not do that shit again and i'm pretty sure it broke my brain.
i eventually moved around 13 degrees in latitude further from the equator and into some highlands. some have implied i have over-corrected, but i can always get under more blankets and put on more clothes and find shit to burn. when it's too hot, you just get naked and lose your mind.
i remember a few years ago when the temperature reached 35 in the middle of the summer and i thought that was pretty wild.
the last few years it's been 38 for weeks straight in the summer.
this year it reached 38 in late may