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According to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), a heat wave is qualified when air temperatures of at least 40 °C (104 °F) in the plains or greater than 30 °C (86 °F) in the hilly regions. For the IMD classification of heat waves, temperatures greater than 46 °C (114.8 °F) are considered and classified as severe heat waves. Every year India experiences severe heat waves in summer, but in the year 2015, casualties were abnormally high. Moving away, in Aug 2015 : A city in Iran experienced what is believed to be history’s second highest temperature ever as a blistering heatwave lingered over the Middle East.The air in Bandar Mahshahr in the Persian Gulf recorded a sweltering "heat index" of 74°C (165°F). The ancient city and port of Bandar Mahshahr sits on the coast in the south-west corner of Iran, where water temperatures are regularly in the 30s. During that time, the Iraqi government ordered a four-day public holiday to help people deal with the heatwave. It's hot, but some places are hotter than others. Shade, vegetation, building materials and the sea breeze create huge variations in temperature even within short distances. An interesting report in today’s SMH states :If you really want to know how hot you are, try getting around the city with Jonathan Fox, an expert in urban microclimates armed with an infrared camera and a hand-held weather station, the Kestrel 4000. His PhD at the University of NSW Australia is looking at how different building facades - their colour, position, geometry, material density and so on - affect the outdoor "thermal comfort" of pedestrians and passers-by. Before climate change, no one thought too much about it, and building materials weren't generally chosen for their cooling properties. (Rule No.1: the lighter the colour, the better).Mr Fox's aim is to create a tool to help designers make buildings which keep our cities cooler. .. ~ and at a time, when media wrote about 41 deg C – in the Sydney Fish Market's car park at 11.15am, the infrared camera read 57.7 degrees, just a fraction cooler than the sand on Bondi Beach, where it measured 57.9 degrees.
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20th Nov. 2015.