I don't think we've hit 100 degrees this year. I'm trying to remember when we usually hit it. I know August and September are freakin hot! We've had a ton of rain, so much rain. I live at a lake and just a few months ago we had peirs sitting on dry land and now some of them are under water. It's crazy, but I haven't lived here at the lake long enough to know if it's normal.

What I'm wondering now is who all has experienced massive rainfall that is highly unusual? Below are just a few of the flooding stories from the past few days.

More rain to hit China after floods kill over 500 - Yahoo! News
More rains forecast as England, Wales see wettest months since 1766 - Yahoo! News
Indonesian floods spread, 82 dead - Yahoo! News
Southern Texas still under flood warning - Yahoo! News

It will be interesting to see how the hurricane season plays out. It's quite now, but August and September it picks up. The heatwave in Hungary...WOW! 500 people have died.

Heatwave claims hundreds of lives in Europe - Yahoo! News

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Sorry to hear that OSB. I wasn't even aware that the floods went as far as Ireland. You see how much it affects our lives...

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______________________Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”___________________Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Its been awful the worst summer ever. Every single day in July except one its lashed rain. Shops are selling out of umbrellas instead of bikinis and summer clothes (We are all blaming Rhiannas no1 song "Umbrella" for all this by the way - coincidence?)



Strangely Ireland hasn t experienced major flooding whilst Britain has. Road accidents are increasing of course, especially in dark country areas. Blessington where Bere's nephew was killed is a notorious black spot and rain just makes it even worse. I remember my 13 year old friends father was killed on that road after heavy rain made him lose control of the car.

Normally Ireland gets the absolute worst of the weather coming from the Atlantic first (hence the wet west of Ireland) and in general we are known for constant rain. Maybe we took more precautions or it didn t rain that hard in the high risk areas. Thankfully there has been no major flooding in towns or cities.

Britains floods are like something out of Noah's arc. Now there has been at least 2 deaths as a result

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British teenagers score the highest in Europe - when it comes to teen pregnancy tests.

I was in Rome and Paris in Aug 2003. It was up to 45 degrees, and it was HELL. People said - oh well - you're from Australia - should be OK for you - but it was a completely different kind of heat. We have heatwaves with those temps here - but its nothing like that was.

I've also been in the Sahara in summer - up to 50 degrees. It was much easier to cope with than paris of that year. And really - with the humidity I don't know that the airconditioners that we have here would cope with that kind of heat ....

mind you - I've never had an airconditioner in any house I've owned ... never needed one. Good housing design makes them redundant for the most part.

Yes, that should be said over and over again ...

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______________________Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”___________________Alexander Solzhenitsyn

So therefore you have never lived in a hot and humid climate.

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One day, I will sneak across the border into Canada and be an illegal alien. It will be fun.

How hot and how humid? Up in the city it tends to be a drier heat, but in wet schlerophyll forest (where I lived for 7 years, and intend to move back to in the next couple of years) it gets pretty humid. Admittedly when its 38 degrees and high humidity I wouldn't be doing much, but its bearable. In a work environment air conditioning would probably be wise. I recall one day where it was 42 and high humidity - but I happened to be 120 kms away that day. I can't compare what THAT was like.

(FYI 38C is higher than 100F)

45 degrees and high humidity though - I've not experienced that except for in Europe in a record heatwave ... I doubt you would get similar conditions in the US very often.

There are principles in design which - although perhaps increasing initial construction costs - reduce the reliance on artifical temperature control, and therefore home energy consumption.

Most initial constructions costs other than solar panels to reduce home energy consumption are recaptured within three years by energy cost savings. By code all new residences in my state must have 5.5" thick exterior walls (139.7mm) with matching wall insulation, 2' of ceiling insulation and 1' of floor insulation for raised foundations. Our last home, in another state, had what are standard 3.5" thick exterior walls (89mm). The thicker exterior walls with comparable double-paned windows actually reduced our summer electric bills (using air conditioning) by 60% even with rising electric costs.