I’m not she what she meant exactly, but she said that the heat here was relentless, whereas in Auystrilia when it gets this hot they usuall have a thunder storm 
In Australia, depending on where you are, and on luck, the weather can do one of several things at the end of a very hot day:
- it can stay bloody hot 24 hours
- a dramatic thunderstorm will roll in during the late afternoon or evening. This can be cooling and nice, but after it’s gone things often get hot again (and now everything is steaming).
-a southerly change (“Southerly Buster[sup]TM[/sup]”) will hit. This is the best of the three outcomes. At about four or five in the afternoon, just when you think you can’t handle the heat any longer, a door will slam, leaves start kicking up… The morning’s hot air has risen, and a front of cool air from the high southern latitudes rushes in to replace it. It’s really cool, but one of those things I swear happened more when I was younger (though I’m sure the stats would show I’m wrong).
I have lived all of my life in Texas so I can certainly sympathize with the French, and everyone, suffering in this heat wave.
I work at a textbook store, so every August I have to unload about a hundred, 50# boxes from an idiling tractor trailer. It gets hot! Here is a tip (kind of silly though): When you start to overheat splash water on your face, OK that’s a given, but if you cup water in your hand and submerge your ear in your hand full of water it cools your head, and then your body down quicker. Repeat with other ear. Granted your head, ears and shirt are all wet, but I am usually soaked in sweat at that point anyway.
Hey Broomstick, thanks for the reply, that’s something I’ve been wondering about ever since the Chicago heatwave. I grew up in Florida and now live in Texas (and I exercise outdoors daily and drive a car without air conditioning) so the mass deaths at tempertures I’m accustomed to have always confused me.
I’d like to believe it’s the AC, but I strongly suspect it’s simply that more Europeans than Americans do not know how to behave in high temperature weather.
The difference between just complaining about the heat and being killed by it comes down to how much water you drink. If you’re accustomed to heat, you know to slow down and drink more water. If you aren’t, you may not be aware of just how much water you’re supposed to drink. Dehydration can creep up on you.