It's been hot!
Wow, what was that last week. We're clearly in the hot & dry cycle of exceptional weather.
-2018 : was the worst heatwave in Belgium with the only time I remember the heat hitting 40C which made me feel very sick when I walked the full 300m to pick up the children from summer playground camp. See here
- 2019: seems to have a bit of everything...tropical heat or rain.
- 2020: One thing that corona gave us was very nice weather, especially an exceptionally hot & dry enabling everybody's walking routines. Also, summer was quite nice
- 2021 : Summer started rained out and continued with rain disaster that killed
- 2022: There were very strong heatwaves in summer with the highway grass sides catching fire and some towns lacked water supply. We left for France, and I remember taking crappy pictures because I refused to stand one minute in a non-shady spot that would have provided me with better views. Only the shadow was a little bit bearable in temperatures between 35 and 40C.
- 2023 : That seemed a nice whimsical summer with all types of weather coming by just like the good old days.
- 2024 : As of October or November 2023 up to early 2025 we've had 16 months of above average rain. Grey skies, rain, ...and more rain. Very depressing, inundations that were fortunately not as catastrophic as in 2021. I must admit that August was quite ok in this, which some exceptionally wet days killing the average but our month of staycation was surely not hurt but the weather.
And now...Most of June has been very hot again. But the real first heatwave came in July. And the highway melted again (literally). The next heatwave is getting lined up for the end of next week. Fortunately, we are treated to some cooler days including 2 rain days in between now. Rain now seem glorious.
I must say that I seem to be in a better mood during heatwaves than the non stop rain of 2024, but that has its limits. We now have airco in Kabouter's room cooling off our top floors reasonably well and we use the old mobile airco in our room. Also at work in the office we finally seem to have the airco in control which wasn't the case in the first years of the new building (cfr 2022). So as long as there's options to hide and cool off from the excessive heat outside, I feel good. But I realise this is not a luxury that everyone has. The heat waves are in a way much more scary, dangerous and harder to deal with than lots of rain. For rain you only need shelter...for heat it is harder to hide and the solutions against the heat are contributing to the climate change.
Let's hope we'll still get some whimsical years that alternate sufficiently.
cheering for the start of a bit of rain from the window
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