The first heatwaves of the season reveal how ill-prepared governments across the continent are to protect people from increasingly dangerous temperatures
It needs basically more than a week of extreme heat here for room temperatures to accumulate to the point that it’s crossing the mid-20s…
That hasn’t been my experience. Extreme heat will do it in a couple of days, fewer if the extreme heat follows a period of normal summer heat. And that’s true for well-insulated single family homes with blinders that are on the outside of windows, most of the apartment buildings I’ve lived in didn’t have any blinders and would heat up on the first day of all-day summer sun that’s followed by a mild night.
Even well-insulated homes rely on cool nights to maintain temperatures in the mid-20s for any stretch of time, and pretty much by definition, heat waves don’t have cool nights.
That hasn’t been my experience. Extreme heat will do it in a couple of days, fewer if the extreme heat follows a period of normal summer heat. And that’s true for well-insulated single family homes with blinders that are on the outside of windows, most of the apartment buildings I’ve lived in didn’t have any blinders and would heat up on the first day of all-day summer sun that’s followed by a mild night.
Even well-insulated homes rely on cool nights to maintain temperatures in the mid-20s for any stretch of time, and pretty much by definition, heat waves don’t have cool nights.