TWENTY-SEVEN DEGREES

This evening, my apartment got to a high of twenty-seven degrees, as the quarter of daylight heated things up. It’s the middle of May and my apartment is as hot as it was last July and August.

All across the province, weather records were broken. It seems like every year now, weather records are re-written, either for the lows or the highs, sometimes in the same year.

I’m not sure I can remember the last time it got so hot in mid-May. A typical spring for Vancouver would have us experience clouds and showers, with the temperatures gradually moving the from mid-teens to possibly the low 20s by June. It seems like we skipped all of that and just went to the height of the summer. In May!

I brought my air-conditioner out and it’s now ready to go at a moment’s notice. An air-conditioner would have seemed like a novelty in Vancouver even just a few years ago but it’s turned into a necessity.

I just hope it does cool down for the rest of May and into June. It’s not good overall if this is the type of heat that sticks around for the next four months. Having the A/C on is a huge expense for my electricity bill. Typically, I only have it on regularly in July and August. When that happens my bill is about double what I usually pay in the spring.

A prolonged heat wave also is not good for a large part of the population. Many people here, mostly seniors, still aren’t living in homes that are prepared for the intense heat we’ve seen in the last two years. Many are on fixed incomes and can’t afford to get a portable A/C. They’re the ones who I worry about the most during this heat.

None of this is good.

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