Chime School

Posts Tagged ‘heatwave’

ITN Video on UK Heatwave

The weather in Britain is so notoriously miserable most of the time that you have to feel the Brits deserve the heatwave they recently experienced. During the end of June and beginning of July temperatures rocketed to a whopping 35 Celsius (95F), the highest recorded for three years.  It was also the highest recorded temperature in June for decades – the average for June is 19-22 degrees Celcius (around 70 degrees Fahrenheit).

However when you subject such conditions on a people who hardly ever experience it, you can be sure of a little madness flying about.

Lobsters & Melanoma

The first thing British people do when even the smallest amount of sun is spotted is get their kit off.  You can visit any town in Britain during such weather and be sure of spotting hordes of people fighting for a good patch to sun themselves.  Several months down the line you can be sure of a few melanoma scares resulting from the overexuberant sun-worshipping.

The Grumbling Begins

True to form, the British mentality can’t deal with simply being happy and counting there blessings for more than a few days. Sure enough we soon started hearing people grumbling about it being too hot, and wishing for some cooler weather or even some rain. And, inevitably, there were petitions to demand the government do something about the awful hot weather and lack of air conditioners in public places!

Fan Stampede

While one half of the British population is stripping down to their underwear, the other half rushes down to the high street and sucks up the entire stock of desk fans like some sweaty, many-headed monster. According to Google, searches for the term “portable air conditioner” in the UK went from 9,900 in May to 49,500 in June!

Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud

Sadly the tropical heatwave didn’t last and since this scorching seven days the country has been hit by equally severe rain and thunder storms.The yo-yoing between extreme weather patterns is certainly worrying for environmental campaigners as an example of climate change in effect.The funniest part of it is that the same people who were complaining about the heat the previous week, are now complaining about the heavy rainfall. I guess there’s no winning.

A young British woman working in an office in London was seriously injured recently when her hair was trapped by the blades of a desk fan, leading to servere blood loss and lacerations to the scalp. Emily Hutnyk, 24, an administrative assistant at a major telecommunications firm in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, was trying to cope with the recent heatwave in the UK . Thermometers in the captial city rose to as high as 35 Centigrade (95 F) on July 1st, which meant if you worked in an office in London the conditions could become rather unbearable. Just like many other office workers, Miss Hutnyk put a small fan on her desktop in order to stay cool while trying to work. Since desk fans are notoriously inneficient at cooling in very high temperatures, she repeatedly moved the appliance closer to her face. However her long hair, swept around by the wind caused by the fan, swept in between the grilles and got caught in its whirling blades. It only took seconds for a large amount of hair and skin to be forcefully torn out of the girl’s head by the rotating blades of the fan. “I hardly remember it to be honest”, admitted Miss Hutnyk when interviewed later, “I think I passed out within seconds – it was my poor colleagues who had to watch it happen. I think my co-workers were acutally the traumatised ones – apparently my blood went everywhere.” She was rushed to the nearest hospital by ambulance, where she was treated for blood loss, scalp wounds and shock. Once her head wounds have fully recovered Miss Hutnyk may consider hair implant surgery, as some of the hair that was pulled out may never grow back.

“This was a terrible accident,” said a company spokesman later. “It is something we want to avoid happening again and we’ll be reviewing the provision of cooling appliances in the office. We will be fitting each office with a ceiling fan and banning the use of desk fans to prevent these kinds of incidents in the future.” Office and general workers trade union GMB scoffed at this response from the company, calling it “far short of the mark”. “The root cause of such disasters is that we don’t have equipment or laws in place in workplaces to help us cope with hot weather – ceiling fans aren’t enough. We are demanding that every office in the UK be fitted with at least a portable air conditioner both to help people concentrate on their work and ensure this kind of tragedy never happens again.” Miss Hutnyk, at the unions advice, is currently considering whether to pursue legal action against the company, which could be a landmark case in health and safety and employment law.

Heatwave warning rises as Britain bakes (Youtube)

In the UK the year round weather is so blighted by rain and clouds – but the population got a well deserved break recently with some thermometer busting conditions. The last week of June this year saw UK temperatures soar to a reported 35 degrees Celsius (or 95 in Fahrenheit), the highest recorded for three years.  It was also the hottest temperature in June for decades – the average for June is 19-22 degrees Celcius (around 70 degrees Fahrenheit).

But when a population starved of warmth and sunshine are given it all in one go, crazy things start to happen.

Sunburn City

First thing you see when the sun comes out in the UK is people stripping down to bikinis to make the most of the sun.  You can visit any town in Britain during such weather and be sure of spotting hordes of people fighting for a good patch to sun themselves.  Several months down the line you can be sure of a few melanoma scares resulting from the overexuberant sun-worshipping.

The Grumbling Begins

True to form, the British mentality can’t deal with simply being happy and counting there blessings for more than a few days. As sure as the sun sets, people soon started to complain about it being too hot, getting nostalgic about how cool it was last week. And, inevitably, there were petitions to demand the government do something about the awful hot weather and lack of air conditioners in public places!

Staying Cool

With half of the UK population is stripping down to their underwear, the rest rushes down to the high street and sucks up the entire stock of desk fans like some sweaty, many-headed monster. According to Google, searches for the term “portable air conditioner” in the UK went from 9,900 in May to 49,500 in June!

Nothing Lasts Forever

Unfortunately these Mediterranean conditions failed to stick around, and after a week of this there were equally severe thunderstorms and rain, leading to severe flooding in some parts.  Many environmental campaigners are pointing to these extremities as yet more evidence of the effects of climate change.Now, of course, the UK public is now starting to complain about the rain and harking back to the heatwave. You just can’t win.