’90 feels like 120 here’: US expats react to ‘unbearable’ heatwave that makes UK ‘feel like a sauna’

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/expats-social-media-uk-heatwave/

by tylerthe-theatre

34 comments

  1. Its the humidity and our housing not built to handle heat.

  2. can they use proper measurements instead of their idiotic “but it measures how it feels!!1!1!!” bullshit

  3. This time of year is when I’m glad to have a north-facing property. It means it’s cold and dark for much of the year, but right now, it’s a pretty comfortable temperature inside, even at night.

  4. 90 and 120, are 32 and 49 in normal temperature measurements (c) in case anyone else was wondering

  7. Americans crank the AC so high you need a sweatshirt to go grocery shopping in July.

    Then they come here, get slapped by 90% humidity, and say, “Wow, it’s hot out!” as if nature’s the weird one.

  8. It isn’t unusual for the UK- well, SE England, to reach 30C. It’s summer!!!!!

  9. Similarly I’ve seen Canadians say that -2 here feels like -20. As others have said I think it’s the humidity and housing.

  10. In the immortal words of Peter Kay “Have a Solero and shut the fuck up!”

  11. Another quirk of British media, using Fahrenheit instead of Celsius… Just because the bigger number gets clicks 😂

  12. People often say it’s because of the humidity, but why do I never feel the same mugginess that I do stepping off a plane in the tropics

  13. meanwhile in norway its fucking freezing which is kinda absurd considering we are right next door

  14. I like seeing the sun, and I like the heat to an extent. What I don’t like is the fact my flat retains the heat and becomes unbearable. My workplace is the same, and I’m pretty sure many other buildings are too.

  15. American living in UK for the past three years – yeah, the English summers are just *hot*.

    It’s definitely lack of AC in most houses and, in my case, no car to blast AC in so I’ve got to walk in the heat to work. 

    I think sometimes there’s very little transition to summertime here, as well. This year especially, it seems like we skipped spring entirely and just went to summer.

    That being said, the US summers are wild as well. Southern states like Georgia and Texas experience temperatures so high that their plastic trash cans start melting and you can fry an egg on the pavement. My parents live on the east coast and sometimes shower thrice a day because they just *sweat* as soon as they step outside.

  16. Thing is, 32°C is the ambient outdoor temperature.

    If you’re in an office, in a heavily insulated building, with little ventilation, no air conditioning and a dozen other people and their computers emitting warmth, it can very easily get above 40°C.

  17. As an American in the UK I honestly think it’s the lack of respite. I’m from the Midwest and we had hot, humid summer days. The summer was longer and warmer than what we get on the southern edge of the Midlands, where I live now. But it didn’t feel as oppressive.

    The problem is, in the UK, there is no escape. The houses don’t have AC and they are all brick and cinder block, so they don’t cool down enough at night. You get in your car and the AC doesn’t work nearly as well or as fast as it would in an American car. You go to work and it’s hot. You go to the shop and it’s hot. All those places would be climate controlled in the US.

    When you don’t get a break from the heat, it makes it that much harder to deal with.

  18. Just got back from Greece who have just had a heatwave – it was 35°C at peak for most of the week.

    When we landed in the UK it was 27°C – I have been significantly more uncomfortable here

  19. I love some “Ooh its too hot!” Banter but please,people, check on your elderly neighbours, your parents,  anyone vulnerable. 

  20. Using these past couple of days and calibrated airport measuring equipment to measure the temperature and dewpoint when at maximum temperature:

    Location | Temperature | Dew Point | Relative Humidity
    —|—|—-|—-
    Heathrow | 28 | 11 | 35%
    Manchester | 27 | 9 | 32%
    Newcastle | 21 | 12 | 56%
    Birmingham | 29 | 11 | 33%
    Bournemouth | 26 | 13 | 45%
    Bristol | 28 | 13 | 40%

    It’s really not that humid.

    I read other comments of people saying humidity reaches 90%. At high temperatures, it certainly does not.

    Humidity in the UK is on par with most other European nations. It’s far from exceptional.

  21. I was fucking melting last night at 24 degrees in Exeter ffs and it’s about the same back home in Plymouth 😭 as a a pale skinned ginger woman I fucking hate the hot weather 😭

  22. “expat”. The word is immigrants. Or is that word only used for non whites?

    Edit: lmao, downvotes by white immigrants

  23. LA current humidity is 88%, NY is 65% (lower than London at 52%). It really isn’t the humidity, at all. It’s simply the lack of quality AC inside buildings.

  24. Portuguese here. Heatwaves in the UK can indeed be difficult. Had to deal with one a couple of years back when I was in Southampton. Houses in the UK are simply not built to deal with excessive heat.

    That’s not to say that around here summers aren’t super hot either, but we’re better equipped for that lol.

  25. One of the fun things about being from the UK is the weather. It can be snowing one week then 20 and sunny the next with the all the crazy in between regardless of season. I’ve noticed it takes me 1 to 3 days max to adjust to any other climate. I spent 3 weeks in sound east Asia where it was 35 day and night and near 100% humidity (or it felt like that). Apart from almost choking when I walked out of the airport after a couple of days it didn’t bother me at all. If you’ve lived all your life where the temperate is pretty constant for the season then I can imagine it can be a bit of shock to the system.

  26. Our country is not built in any way for the types of sunmers we now get every year, particularly in southern England and London (where a large percentage of the UK population lives), and particularly in flats and smaller homes.

    AC is necessary in the summer as much as heating is in the winter. You can likely survive without either, but it’s miserable and dangerous.

    We need to start by increasing our national grid capacity significantly. And going forward we need to be installing HVAC heat pumps as standard in all new builds, and retrofit older houses with smaller windows, good quality insulation, and fixed air conditioning.

    We get stretches of 30+ every year. People die from this every year – babies through to grannies die from being trapped in boiling hot ‘greenhouse’ homes.

  27. I feel like we’re massively over exaggerating the heat, it’s hardly unbearable. I actually think it’s quite nice.

  28. People should have a look at a chart of wet bulb and dry bulb temperature. 32 degrees with relative humidity of 30% is fine, with humidity 90% not very nice.

  29. Ok, I will say it. Everybody says the same. It’s always the same “but we have it worst”.

    I used to live in Spain, different cities. Every single time “but here the heat feels different, you know”.

    In Alicante “here 30 degrees feels like 45 because the humidity”.
    In Madrid “here 30 degrees feels like 45 because it’s dry and burns your skin”
    In Edinburgh “here 30 degrees feels like 45 because the housing”

    Conclusion, everywhere 30 degrees feels like 45.

  30. Coming from an area of the world that gets up to 38.C in the summer, this is not even close.

  31. I’ve been through feels like temperatures of 52C in Brazil (“raw” temps of 40C) in places that have even gone beyond 100% humidity (water dripping from the walls).

    Yet I can’t even handle 28-29, let alone 30C+ in London without sweating and begging for A/C as if it were a feels like of 48C.

  32. Some people from US are very proud about handling incredibly high temps, but then forget that they live in places with AC running 24/7.

  33. We do try to explain this like and they don’t believe us

  34. Funny, how when it’s Americans they are called expats instead of immigrants.

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