Tuesday, May 30, 2006

We're having a heatwave.......

For some reason I have Ella Fitzgerald in my head singing the Cole Porter classic "we're having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave..." In my previous blog from last weekend, I was bitching about the cold and rain during the May longweekend last week. Well, welcome to Toronto! where in a week we have had temperatures jump to 33 degrees celsius with a humidex of 42 degrees. Which means when you are outside it feels as if it is 42 degrees! It is just after 10am here in Toronto and already it is 28 degrees celsius. God bless Global warming or whatever is causing this! We have a smog alert and it is just hot, humid and nasty outside. As a true north girl, I really hate this heat and humidity...I can't wait til fall and winter. I don't mind this type of heat if I am in a place like Florida or the Caribbean where you at least have some cool breezes coming in from the ocean. Here all we have is concrete and tall buildings. As we are situated on the very large lake Ontario you would think we would get some cool breezes but we have built up the waterfront with so many towers and condominiums there is nowhere for the breezes to blow! (the waterfront mess, i will save for a future blog) As a city we do have a lot of trees but I fear with this heat and smog they are suffering and not able to perform their task of keeping the air as fresh and cool as they used to.

To make matters worse, our wonderful TTC (public transit) workers decided to walk off the job yesterday holding the city to ransom. It caused sheer gridlock throughout the city and almost 1 million people had to find alternate ways to get to work. Walking to work in 42 degree humidex temperatures is not fun. Thank god i was lucky enough to get a lift in from JB in our air conditioned car and my co-worker Platt gave me lift home in his airconditioned car. Bet all the extra cars on the road made the air even better! The photo shows the thousands of stranded commuters walking up Bay Street from the train station.






Temperatures are supposed to go down to a more reasonable 23/24 degrees by tomorrow and through to the rest of the week and the Mayor legislated all the workers back to work last night.

2 comments:

epicurist said...

If you recall 2 sundays ago, it was bitterly cold. We went North of the city about an hour and a half to Beaver Valley. Weather was beautiful on the Saturday, and to our surprise, we woke up to a snow storm the Sunday morning

theweescunner said...

it was coooooold in Niagara on the Lake on the Sunday. It kept raining on and off and when it stopped it was still cold outside. Went to an amazing restaurant called "Zee's" If you go there check it out. I like the winter and I love the cold but in May I like it to be temperate.