Tuesday, May 29th, 2007, 4pm.
30.4 degrees Celcius in the shade.
Location: Espoo, Finland.
No, this is not a joke.
This is global warming.
It is NEVER this hot in May in Finland. And not just hot. It's really humid too. The weather forecast for this week is rain and thunder, between 12 and 23 degrees centigrade. Every day. Instead, I'm sweating like a pig on a large open flame.
We're used to two kinds of summer here in Finland: wet and cold, or hot and dry. Usually both during the same summer months.
This year, the summer started early. It feels like the hottest days of summer. In May. The only exception is the unforeseen humidity. The unbearable humidity. We're used to dry heat.
As for the rain and thunder, the forecast wasn't completely off the mark. True, on mention of the burning sun and sweltering heat, but there's pain almost every day. Yet, it's not the summer rain that we're used to. It's tropical.
Take the last few days for example. It has been unbearably humid since about Friday. Yet sunny and warm every day.
Truth be told, the weather has been quite peculiar for the last week or so.
Friday evening and night was really misty in Espoo.
Saturday it rained in the morning, while late evening brought with it a severe thunderstorm that cut power and TV transmissions around Finland. Initially, it was thunder without rain. Then came the rain, pouring down on us. Hard. During the day was sunny.
Sunday was hot, with a cool breeze at most times. The papers were predicting that the heat (helle in Finnish...) was coming soon. More rain.
Monday was another got day, hitting some 27ish degrees at best. The late afternoon brought a few surprises with it. A rolling clap thunder which lasted some 10 seconds. Then five minutes of silence from above. Then another rolling clap of thunder, accompanied with 5 minutes of rain. Naturally, we we're outside at Seurasaari at the time, looking for squirrels to feed. After the rain, the rest of the day was nice and sunny, slightly cloudy. Ok weather for sitting at a terrace drinking a beer.
Today, Tuesday has been tropical. The kind of weather when you'd rather sit inside at home or an air-conditioned bar than be outside, with the exception of being at the beach...
The summer has started with a bang, a flash of heat that doesn't seem to go away. And it's only the end of May. Warn your grandparents, it's going to be a hot summer. In the mean time, it's time to bring out the shorts and bikinis, and enjoy this unusual weather.
Don't forget the suntan lotion!
(My prediction for the summer, all over Europe: death from heat exhaustion. The summer of 2003 was hot, and thousands of old people perished, especially in France. No need to travel to the tropics, because the tropics are coming to us this summer. And America, prepare for Katrina The Sequel... This might really be the summer when everyone realizes that global warming is not a myth...)
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