Heat wave

One of the high points of my week was getting soaked to the skin on a tram stop platform by a passing municipal truck sprinkling water to keep the dust down. With the temperature at around 35 degrees Celsius, the cool spray provided at least a brief relief from the mind-melting heat.

By coincidence I was on my way to an electrical shop to buy a fan, in an effort to make my flat at least slightly more bearable. I had already tried three other shops that day, all of which were totally sold out of fans. The relevant shelf in store four was also bare, but the assistant – as if imparting valuable information – told me in hushed tones to come back the next day, towards the evening.

After a fortnight of intense heat, Lidové noviny reported that sales of all kinds of air conditioning products have broken records this year. Retailers have sold several times as many such goods as last year, but say there is still there is no way they can meet all the demand.

The papers and news sites have also carried lots of articles on other effects of the heat wave, such as the fact some workers, for instance in foundries, are getting special extra breaks.

After extremely high temperatures led to the buckling of sections of motorway in a couple of places Mladá fronta Dnes carried the rather alarming headline “it could happen anywhere”. Cracks appeared in the runway of an airport near Prague. Meanwhile, a spike in road deaths was also partly blamed on the heat frying drivers’ brains.

For their part, farmers say drought could see them lose 15 percent of this year’s corn crop, while breeders of carp say the heat wave could lead to a potentially fatal lack of oxygen in the country’s fishponds.

However, my sympathies at times like this always go to Prague’s tram drivers. For us passengers even a few minutes can seem like a sweaty (and smelly) eternity. But the poor drivers somehow manage to work shifts of up to 12 hours in cabins where the temperature can exceed 50 degrees Celsius, making them effective saunas on tracks. Their bosses say all they can do is provide special ionic drinks to replace the fluids lost by perspiring.

The bad news is that forecasters are warning that the tropical temperatures could continue until the middle of next month, so we have probably several hot as hell weeks ahead of us. I swear I’m never going to complain about the cold in winter again. At least not until December or January.