We must be the only country that can have a heatwave that lasts 24 hours and is then talked about as the most momentous climatic event since the last ice age.
The British are so used to unpredictable weather that it is the opening gambit in any conversation with a stranger.
“Turned out nice again,” George Formby used to say and everybody else follows the same formula feeling at ease discussing rain, sleet, cloud, blue skies, snow or any combination that we are likely to get in one day.
The weather is a natural ice breaker, especially if it’s icy.
But we go particularly overboard for sunshine, probably because we view it as a foreign import that has somehow strayed away from its usual mooring place over Benidorm.
“Hotter than the Costas,” I recall a headline in the Blackpool Evening Gazette in the 1960s when the resort was feeling the pinch from package holidays.
The temperature may only have climbed that high for a couple of days but it was long enough for a newspaper photographer to take an obligatory snap of an egg frying on a pavement to reinforce the message.
We prelude a day of heat with apocalyptic warnings to ensure children are smothered in a protective sun factor cream with a rating high enough to block a nuclear attack and that the elderly are locked indoors in a cold bath while blasted by the oscillations of a fan purloined from an aeronautical wind tunnel.
The children will, of course, soon wash the cream off in the paddling pool and the elderly will sensibly stay in the shade while possibly having a cooling draft or two in the pub.
We don’t even seem to understand what constitutes a heatwave which, according to the Met Office, is a prolonged period of hot weather when the maximum daily temperature of more than five days exceeds the average by five degree Celsius.
The average maximum for July is 20.9°C (69.6°F). So to qualify as a heatwave, we need the mercury to hit 25.9°C or 78.62°F – for five consecutive days. That’s a long time for a British summer.
Two years ago there was a decent blast of sunshine but genuine heatwaves have been in short supply.
The temperature topped 100°F for the first time in 2003 and everyone who is old enough remembers the scorcher that was 1976, the hottest summer since UK records began with endless days of 80°F temperatures, moorland fires, water shortages, 12% food price rises and the appointment of a Minister for Drought. As soon as he took office, it rained.
We love sustained good weather because it’s rare but it brings problems.
India has this year suffered an extended heatwave with dire consequences, California is in its fourth year of drought and thank your lucky stars you don’t live in Australia.
Between October 1923 and April 1924 the town of Marble Bar set a world record after enduring 160 consecutive days above 100°F (38°C). Oo-er. It weren’t half hot mum.
It was pleasant to enjoy good weather for roughly a day and a half last week but it has a strange effect on the brain and prompted me to dash out and buy a paddling pool and two pairs of new shorts.
What do I need two pairs of new shorts for at my age?
The weather is likely to be mixed for the next couple of weeks but forecasters are predicting the return of a proper heatwave by the end of the month, with temperatures that may even beat previous records.
British Weather Services expert Jim Dale is reported as saying it will coincide perfectly with the start of the school holidays.
“It’s going to be the hottest time of the year,” he said. “In the last week of July and the first week in August there will be a sustained heatwave.”
I may get some wear out of my shorts after all. And it will give strangers something to talk about.
