Too hot to handle

It’s nice to have lovely weather. We’ve now had such a long stretch of dry, sunny weather that the fire departments in all of western Norway are on special alert. It won’t take much to start a fire with everything as dry as it is.

Unlike my native California, everything’s green and lush and we’re not yet required to conserve water. And there’s humidity.

I can’t remember Bergen being humid before, but with these odd weather patterns (or glitches – can’t really say there’s a pattern), Bergen has acquired that new quality when it’s hot. Used to be it was hot and the sky was clear and that was that. Now it’s hot and cloudy at the same time. And the clouds shut the heat in and humidity rises.

Of course we are all enjoying the sunshine. After bundling up all winter, it is wonderfully liberating to be barefoot in sandals and never need a jacket. That is the advantage. The disadvantage is that it’s too hot to move around in. At least for me. Haven’t got the hang of humidity yet.

So what’s a heat wave like at 60 North? 25C/77F in the shade here, 34C/93F in the direct sunshine, but some places have 27C/81F in the shade. But no one calls it a heat wave here. Here, it’s just perfect summer weather. Heat waves are what they have on the continent – you know, those things the newspapers write about because someone died.

I wonder how hot it has to get before even the Norwegians complain?