IT GETS HOT in the Middle East at this time of year. Too hot for most Irish people to bear, with summer temperatures reaching the high 30s and low 40s on an annual basis.
But this is just ridiculous.
A recent heatwave throughout the Middle East has seen temperatures of 51 degrees Celsius in Iraq.
And yesterday, the heat index (which accounts for humidity, and gives a sense of how it actually feels on the ground) reached a simply unimaginable 74 degrees in the Iranian city of Bandar-e-Mahshahr.
That’s SEVENTY-FOUR.
The US National Weather Service has this handy calculator, for figuring out what the heat index is.
It involves an equation that uses the air temperature, and humidity level (or dew point).
To put things in perspective, the temperature and humidity in Dublin Airport at 10pm tonight was 12 degrees and 91%.
So the heat index (how hot it feels) in Dublin tonight is…12 degrees.
Let’s try it with Bandar-e-Mahshahr, a city of 109,000 people in southwestern Iran, where the temperature today was 46 degrees, with a dew point of 32 degrees, according to the Washington Post.
The recent heatwave in the Middle East is being tracked by meteorologist Anthony Sagliani, who discovered a heat index of 68 degrees at Bandar-e-Mahshahr yesterday.
In Baghdad, daily high temperatures have been consistently in the high 40s for the past two weeks, and yesterday reached a record-equalling 51 degrees.
In fact, the Iraqi government announced a mandatory four-day national holiday, starting on Thursday, to help the public cope with the suffocating heat.
The highest temperature ever recorded in Ireland was 33.3 degrees Celsius, at Kilkenny Castle on 26 June, 1887.
The Bank Holiday weekend forecast calls for sunny spells and showers on Saturday, heavy rain on Sunday, and high winds and potentially heavy rain on Monday.
The highest temperature forecast will be 19 degrees, on Monday.
In Bandar-e-Mahshahr, it will hit 46 degrees tomorrow:
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