Heatwave and drought

The summer of 2018 is becoming the new summer of 1976.

• It's hot.
• It's been hot for weeks now.
• At the end of last week it was very uncomfortably hot.
• It's been dry for months now.
• Everyone has difficulty to sleep.
• I've felt a couple of days like a zombie due to lack of sleep.
• For the first time in a few dozen years we sleep consistently with our window open in Leuven even though that is the roadside.
• Beertje's daycare has installed airco in their living space. 
• Several roadsides have caught fire in the previous week. 
• We've received free ice cream twice in the last weeks at work.
• Playgrounds closed because it was too hot to play there. 
• The highway concrete nearby Leuven rose up due to the heat and had to be repaired.  
• In Deinze the bridge had to be cooled down with water to be able to open again. 
• All grass in Belgium is gone and farmer's crops are disastrous.
• 'Our' cows already need to get fed by the winter food as the grass is too dry.
• The farmers from Boer&Companie sound increasingly depressed in the weekly mails what we can harvest or not.   
• Colleagues sat with their feet in the little fish pond during their break. 
• I was ill a day after I assume my ordered sandwich at work has been out the fridge for too long.
• I was happy to return to work quickly after having spent a day ill in bed on Thursday..because there is airco in the office
• We've activated our little portable airco in Kabouter's room for >4 weeks now before bedtime to reduce the temperature in his room enough for him to be able to fall asleep: the last week that was in vain. He complains from the heat and gets up multiple times before he finally falls asleep. During the night the temp in his room rises above 30C again.
• We flee every weekend to the Ardennes now to cool off a bit and profit from more reasonable temperatures there. But last Friday, it was above 30C there too. The advantage has become smaller.
• We (and some friends) thought it was a bit chilly to sit outside without sweater last weekend when it was 24-25 with wind.  Everyone was commenting how nice the temperatures were (while they rose to 27 again). 

Officially our heatwave ended last Saturday and only lasted 14 days.  The official figures only count the days that the temperature in the shade in Ukkel (south of Brussels) is above 25C (and 3 days in that period must be above 30).   Saturday was 24,6C in Ukkel, so the heatwave ended officially after 14 days.  In reality early June was above 25, the last 10 days of June were rising in the direction of 30C,  early July was above 25C. Since last weekend's little dip to 24,6C, the temperatures are already climbing in the direction of 30C again. And it hasn't rained a decent quantity since early June. We are on water watch for weeks now and all water spoilage is forbidden.

formerly known as grass

It's the first time I've seen everyone cheering so much for some potential rain.  The last week there's been very brief showers here and there...mostly to blow away the dry dust but not more. Yet each drip gets posted on social media, people have the radar open all the time to see whether the rain will come to them etc.  Friends text to ask whether we also had some rain or not.  Also for me, the mediocre few little showers were worthy enough to take pictures and go and experience bare feet outside  (and yes, our fake grass looks ridiculously green right now).

The prediction until mid-August remains between 22-30C  (so not the very extremes anymore hopefully) and mostly dry.

This summer will become legendary for our generation like the previous generation had the summer of 1976 and the generation before that had 1948.  At least I hope for the climate that this type of summers will stay rather exceptional.