Sweltering

I had to get up at 5:30 this morning. I couldn't stand it any more. It was just too hot and humid for me to be able to stay in bed. What a strange summer we are having. Yesterday afternoon, I took to my bed, with almost no clothes on and no covers of course, and with an electric fan blowing on me. I stayed that way for several hours, trying to doze and not move around too much. I'm officially tired of hot weather at this point.

The temperature yesterday afternoon was above 90ºF. In the house this morning, it's nearly 80, and outdoors before dawn it's 75. In addition, it's very humid. Maybe that doesn't sound so extreme to some people in some areas, but here it is miserable. Remember, there's no AC in the great majority French houses and apartments. It's hard for Americans, at least in most areas of the U.S., to imagine living without air-conditioning, in that climate over there. But here it's normal. It's this summer's weather that is not normal.

Above is this morning's weather map, showing rain moving up into western France from the south. The legend on the map says to expect "locally violent storms." For now, Saint-Aignan is just on the eastern edge of the band of storms, so we have that to look forward to.

Then it's supposed to cool down to more normal temperatures. That means highs around the level of this morning's so-called low temperature. The map just above shows the forecast for Saturday. Our high is supposed to be 20ºC, which is around 70ºF.