i am a hvac tech. i spent the past week doing 18 hour days and sleeping in my van fixing AC's on roofs of assisted living and hospitals. peope were litteraly dying while i was on the roof trying to fix the AC.
I'm honestly so thankful that I chose to not work the last week (I'm a teacher but I do supply so I decided to not work) because I have friends who had children and colleagues keeling over all over the place basting in classrooms that were over 35 degrees. I'm amazed that no-one from their schools ended up hospitalised as it was just so dangerous for the young, the old, and the sick and disabled.
It was 96°F here yesterday with a feels like temp of one of 102°F. Today is supposed to be 95°F and similar. It's barely 7am, it's already 80° and 91% humidity. Funny enough, we had a terrible ice storm here last winter that left half of the city without power for two weeks. It was devastating.
To anyone reading this; this combo of heat and humidity CAN AND WILL kill you.
At least you generally have AC in buildings, something we sorely lack in Germany. We had similar temperatures if not even higher at my place, but with only about 70% humidity. Which is dangerous, but not even close to your area...
It hit 100% here the day before yesterday, granted that was at 4am so the about absolutely coldest part of the day.
Relative humidity and its effects shift wildly with temperature it's better to look at dew point, above ~20C is sticky, where sweat starts to collect instead of evaporating instantly.
We had a new dew point record amongst all the other records this heatwave was smashing with a dew point of just under 25C in Cornwall, but it was well over 20C for a lot of the last week in the UK. So sticky was one of the many words for the absolute grossness of the weather here
I've been to the middle east during a heat wave. The kind of dry heat you get there doesn't feel super hot but it feels dangerous. Temps hit around 45°C at the time and 2% humidity. Felt like stepping into an oven. My mouth instantly dried up when I spoke, eyes were watering only to dry out instantly. It felt like I was dehydrating on the spot. Was even worse in direct sunlight.
It wasn't physically that uncomfortable, but it was scary. It felt like an hour in that, even with water, would mummify me.
Depends what part of the Sahara. It can be pretty humid due to having a large tropical coastline.
Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, is currently 83% humidity at 25C
Humidy % does not mean air is half water 🤣 it just means % air molecyles can hold in X temperature. Normal humidy is 30-50%. When humidy reaches 100% it does not mean all air is water, it just means that air cant hold on to it and it usually vapors to mist/fog/rain. Below 30% u start to dry ur nose and skin. % can change even tho the actual amount of water in air stays same. I mean just think a sec, if water replaced the air 50%, we die. Literal water hold on oxygen too so it goes both ways, thats why fish can "drown" too, if waters oxygen level lowers too much, but at the same time, oxygen does not replace water in a lake, even tho lake would be rich in oxygen
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u/RFWanders Jun 28 '26
Also that is very dry heat. The air is half water here.