Recommended: ice cream from Kleine Eiszeit in Prenzlauer Berg According to the Berliner Zeitung it hit 36.1 celsius / centigrade today, which explains why I got absolutely nothing done.

For those of you watching in Fahrenheit, that's about 97 degrees. I can say that with confidence because I looked it up here.

Come to think of it, which countries still use fahrenheit to any great degree? (Haha). The only one I can think of is the United States, and to a certain extent Britain, but anyone born after about 1970 - such as myself - grew up with celsius in the weather reports, so I only have a vague grasp of fahrenheit. It was always an afterthought along the lines of "tomorrow will be a sweltering 24 degrees, about 144 fahrenheit, so don't forget to take your woolly jumper in case it rains". (This is British weather we're talking about, so weather forecasts are a bit strange anyway).

Berlin's weather is a bit more predictable, and even if I hadn't seen the forecast I could say with some confidence Friday will be hot and humid with a high chance of thundery showers in the evening which will bring some relief and possibly localised disasters such as flooded cellars and trees falling on cars. It often happens like that after a hot period: it starts growing humid, black clouds pile in from the west and suddenly all hell is let loose for an hour or so with squally rain showers which can be quite dangerous (seriously, as anyone who remembers the Great Summer Storm of 2002 will confirm).

Posted at 8:32 PM in