When England had a hot summer in 2003

[Chundles]

Yeah, but what was the relative humidity? Phoenix, Arizona frequently hits 110ºF or higher in the summer, but the relative humidity stays pretty low... as opposed to Down South (not Down Under), where we frequently get 90ºF+ with 97-100% relative humidity. A lot of people can handle the extra 20 degrees, but not the to-the-max humidity.

As Private Hudson said in Aliens, "Yeah, man, but it's a dry heat!"

Well, I'll admit it was reasonably low, about 20% that day. Our normal weather in summer is as you describe, about 35°C with 85%+ RH. We're on the coast - I'm literally two blocks from the beach so you know it's humid. The point I was making was that during the usual summer swelter when it's about 36°C and it feels like it's just about to rain but won't and there's not a breath of wind about, the clouds are down low on the mountains and no heat can escape, along can come a day where at last the humidity leaves us but replaces it with 45°C and a baking heat. The kind of baking heat that gets us all nervous, especially as this year it was combined with high winds.

45°C + Low RH + high winds + our trees literally explode = bushfires.

Back in 1994 we had some similar conditions but people were less cautious with fire and we ended up with bushfires to the outskirts of the Sydney metro area. The big ones were moving at 90km/h and shooting fireballs up to a kilometre away. How they got them out I'll never know.

I'm not trying to compete, I'm just trying to give you a taste of how harsh the Aussie summer can be. I hate it, the fires scare me as my parents live for all intents and purposes in the bush and a fire could take the house in a matter of minutes. We had a firestorm over the other side of the hill we live on back in 2003 that burnt out whole farms in a matter of half an hour. I fear one happening like the one that got Canberra - we lost 500+ homes in less than one night.

I hate summer!!!