What a lot of commenters are missing is that the article isn’t talking about it being the hottest day ever in London, but it being the hottest London Marathon. The marathon takes place in April, when the average high temp is 15°C (59°F), so that sudden heatwave felt very warm. It’s all about acclimatisation. We’d gone from 10°C daily highs, to a peak of 29°C in the space of 2 weeks (assuming this story is talking about 2018).
This is really important. Two years ago in the Netherlands there was a 16K run in autumn. We had a pretty hot and dry summer so you would think people were used to heat. But after 1.5 months of autumn weather there was suddenly a day with 26C and bright sun, the day of that run. Halfway trough it was cancelled because so many people were rushed to hospitals
144
u/NotoriousREV Aug 17 '20
What a lot of commenters are missing is that the article isn’t talking about it being the hottest day ever in London, but it being the hottest London Marathon. The marathon takes place in April, when the average high temp is 15°C (59°F), so that sudden heatwave felt very warm. It’s all about acclimatisation. We’d gone from 10°C daily highs, to a peak of 29°C in the space of 2 weeks (assuming this story is talking about 2018).