It is currently 30 degrees Celsius in my flat which according to Google is about 86 degrees Fahrenheit.
I am curious why I hear people talk about the heat feels different. Im nervous about coming to America at some point (I want to visit Universal in Orlando) because of the higher temperatures but friends who have been have always said the heat feels different.
High humidity (and UV levels, if you’re outside) certainly make heat feel worse, but that’s from what I know of my local day-to-day differences.
It all depends on the state and season, but you pretty much gotta be prepared for multiple climates a day. Missouri’s heat is stifling and dry or muggy, but Florida’s makes everything damp all the time and the air feels like soup. But the trees are gorgeous. I went to Universal in Orlando for the Harry Potter stuff in 2021 and it was awesome, but the heat took some acclimating to, especially since I don’t have the best endurance
I used to live in Florida when I was in elementary school. My mom always said tourists made a huge mistake going to Disney in the summer. It’s such a waste of money to be miserable while on such an expensive vacation. It’s less hot and less crowded if you go during the school year. My mom thinks October and May are the best months to go.
The good news is, the US has a ton more AC at least. And you may be one of those folks who winds up preferring the humidity. Technically speaking, it’s not usually a positive as it makes your skin sticky and traps body heat when sweat isn’t able to be absorbed into the air as efficiently, but that said dry heat always made me feel like a parched starfish in a desert. Bring the kind of clothing that mitigates the issue as best you can and do not underestimate the heat stroke risk as it’s higher with humidity. So be hydrating and retreating to shade to rest often.
from when i’ve been in that area of florida in summers, the main things are to be prepared for super hot temp with GLARING sun (and very little tree cover), humidity, and for it to start pouring rain with relatively little warning. if you dress light and bring ice cold water with you everywhere it helps! and sunscreen. i’m pale so i can get burned in 30-45 minutes around noon if i’m not wearing any hahaha
also, not sure about florida but where i’m from the thunderstorms can be a little uhhh concerning to people not used to them, the thunder can get insanely loud and wind is slightly alarming a good bit of the time during heavy rain. but outside of a legit hurricane it’s usually not really that bad/dangerous, just can be surprising if ur not used to it, from what customers used to say at the hotel i worked at. anyways, it’s usually a good idea to keep an umbrella or raincoat on you in case of a random downpour, cuz ya never know sometimes rain comes out of nowhere.
And in Florida, every building built for decades has been built to withstand thunderstorms and Hurricanes. Like how almost every house in Kansas has a basement for tornadoes.
And Texas houses can’t typically have basements as the ground is too hard and requires detonation
The heat index is sometimes used as an indicator. Also called “effective heat index”, and most commonly factoring in humidity, but also wind speed (and direction), and UV radiation, at least in my local weather app. Factor in air conditioning, too, but more than that: smart building that takes the weather into account. Florida specifically is in a tropical climate, it’s hot and humid, but it’s coastal, so if the wind that day is coming from the direction of the sea, that’ll bring some relief. Smart building in humid climates centers around directing the air flow through a building.
I remember in Hong Kong the summers would be 32-35C and 99% relative humidity. The humidity makes a big difference.
I honestly can’t handle heat, anything over 80F and I’m frying. I live in a more ‘northern’ US State in Ohio but my chronic illness does not handle heat in any capacity.
Bright side is that the air conditioning’s been working so far!
A deep dive for the first profession of The Frontier approaches…
I spent my whole life wanting to get out of southern California (for a number of reasons, but the heat was definitely one of them), and then I had to go and fall in love with a guy who lived just north of the Mexican border, in the Imperial Valley, where triple-digit heat is par for the course in summer (that’s high 40s for all my metric peeps). The first year we were married, I looked up the name of the man who invented modern air conditioning, because he’s the one I have to credit with the success of my marriage. Not God, not my husband, not myself, not my parents and their horrible example, not my mother and her now-wife and their wonderful example. It’s all to the credit of Willis Carrier.
this is so real. the first summer i was dating my now-partner, the AC in his apartment was BROKEN. for like 2 months, too, because the complex was a total mess and did not give a crap about it. so he would go to work for the day, and i would stay waiting for him back at his place in the horrible heat (i’d go to coffeeshops some ofc, but god that gets expensive fast, so i tried not to go out too much). i remember being so pissed like everyday when he’d get off work, not bc he did anything wrong but just because the HEAT was sooooo bad and i would’ve been sitting for the whole day broiling in my annoyance at the weather and lack of AC ahhahaha. anyways now that we live somewhere with an actual working AC unit it’s a lot less rage-inducing in the summer LMAO
I lived in the UK for a few years and it’s definitely a different heat. 26 degrees Celsius there feels like 30 degrees in Johannesburg (where I’m from.)
It makes sense not to have air conditioning in the UK though, because while it can get hot it’s never for a very long time. For a similar reason our houses in most of the Southern Hemisphere aren’t geared up for winter - winter is short and never cold enough that indoor heating or double glazed windows are necessary. But because of that, it’s perpetually chilly and uncomfortable in winter because we don’t get any relief from the cold in our homes.
I’m kind of jealous listening to everyone complain about the heat. I wish winter would just bugger off here 
This is why I think stone buildings are best in Summer if heatwaves are short. They stay cool longer without fancy tech. Of course when they finally heat up from a long heatwave, you’ll be sitting in a sauna for weeks.
Anything over 20°C and I can’t breathe. (Well, humidity helps in that on those levels, over 25°C and I just want to throw up). I’m a polar bear.
Oof, yeah, there’s nothing like walking barefoot on cool stone tiles on a hot summer day. Stone walls also keep the cool inside for longer, especially if they’re quite thick, as in some older houses.
If daytime highs over 20 degrees are that rare in Finland, I might consider moving there.
I mean, Mestari Cheng is basically a documentary, right?
Concrete and big wall-to-wall south facing windows in my apartment. No such luck.
Alas, they’re not (as far as Summer temperatures go, you’ll probably be getting at least one-two months over 20°C, although not necessarily concurrently). At least not in the parts that don’t also regularly get under -20°C in Winter, at which point I also can’t breathe.
It was 32 degrees here yesterday. I’ll take it.
Well, there was a forecast of potentially hitting 30° for the whole country today, which is… something, but I don’t know if it actually happened anywhere. (Also heat and UV warning for the whole week.)
But Summer’s not over yet.
