pic from freedigitalphotos.net

Last February, PAGASA announced that this year’s summer would be hotter than in the past. And boy, did they get that right! It is really, really hot outside, and the lack of cool breezes isn’t helping either.

A few days ago the temperature reached 35.5 degrees Celsius. And from the fact that it made the news, I’m guessing 35.5 is in the hot-end of the spectrum even for a tropical country like ours. I wanted to compare it to body temperature but I forgot what it was. So I typed in “body temperature” (without the quotes) in Google. And wouldn’t you know, it’s predefined in Google’s calculator (much like the answer to life, the universe and everything).

Body temperature = 37 degrees Celsius

That’s what Google’s calculator displayed. So… how come 35.5 is hot when our own body is 37? I haven’t found a good explanation yet when my searches instead led me to an intriguing study which basically says that a perception of high temperature in a room correlates with a poor climate of cooperation among its occupants. Hmmm… maybe we can use that in some way as an excuse for our country’s problems. :p. But then again, the congressional building is already fully air-conditioned and yet… o_O.

Anyway, I hope it doesn’t get any hotter this year. I read some of the hottest Metro Manila has experienced was 38+ degrees decades ago. But the warning here says we could hit 40 this summer. I guess I should start carrying around a bottle of water. They also advised sunblock… but I’ve only tried that on the beach so I’m not sure how comfortable that would be on a regular day in the city. The best way to protect yourself, though, is to stay indoors especially between 1 pm and 3 pm.