r/heat_prep

The moderators of this subreddit, Robbie and Nate, met in 2017 and became obsessed with heat preparedness. First came this subreddit, and now we've launched a podcast.

Surviving the Climate is a show built around practical, honest information for living through a hotter world. We cover heat and climate survival from every angle — what the science says, what works on the ground, and what you can actually do to protect yourself and the people around you. 

Discussions on r/heat_prep have been incredibly eye-opening and really need to get out to reach others. In each episode we’ll try to reference posts and comments from the sub, so if you've posted or commented here, you may hear your ideas come up in the show.

We’ll also be releasing interview episodes with leading heat experts.

Episode 1 is live right now: Baking in the Bleachers 

Crowds are one of the most underappreciated heat hazards out there. Whether it's a sporting event or a graduation ceremony, the risks are real. In this episode, we discuss recent athletes being impacted by heat, actions spectators can take in the lead-up to the World Cup, and a personal story from our producer Marcelo about his own experience with heat exhaustion.

You can find Surviving the Climate on all the major podcast apps. 

Follow us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and BlueSky. 

This podcast is an extension of the same ethos that brought this community together: needing a space to talk honestly about heat safety and preparedness. 

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and keep an eye on this subreddit as new episodes drop. When each episode drops, we’ll create a discussion post for people to share their thoughts and ideas for future episodes. We’ll also encourage anyone we interview to answer questions in the comments. 

Cheers!

r/heat_prep mods

Temperatures weren’t even that extreme, but the kid bit off more than he could chew.

Europe is one of the fastest warming places on the planet. I have lived in the Spanish capital for over a decade. These are some of my observations on how things are developing and how resilience the city and people are.

Madrid Heat Waves Mostly Break Length Records, not Temp Peaks

An interesting phenomenon specifically in Madrid is even during the peak of the worst heatwaves in recent years, the highs in the city have not actually exceeded the highest temperatures the city can see. Where we break records is for the number of days these temperatures are sustained. I remember a couple years ago a ten-day streak of 38-39ºC (100-102ºF) highs and 22-25ºC (71-77ºF) lows. It royally sucked, but the temperature wasn’t something we weren’t familiar with or equipped to handle. I’m very grateful for this and knock on wood, hope we don’t suddenly get slugged with 45ºC/113ºF like poor Cordoba.

Traditional Passive Cooling Architecture Continues to Protect Us at Zero Energy Cost

When Spain developed, air conditioning was a niche luxury that only a tiny few might have access to. As a consequence, the architectural designs and materials were all planned around being able to keep people safe in peak summers where the temperatures regularly would soar above 40ºC/104ºF and the sun would beat down from cloudless skies.

Some major points:

1. Construction is mostly very thick concrete, stone or masonry. A ton of thermal mass that doesn’t heat quickly.
2. Buildings in the city are stacked right up against each other and many residential streets are narrow, one-lane affairs. This combination severely limits the amount of direct sun exposure.
3. The standard apartment building in Spain is a hollowed out square or rectangle with an empty shaft in the center that goes from the ground level to open air. While this reduces square footage in the apartments, it allows another side to have exterior windows to provide cross ventilation.
4. Almost every significant residential window in Spain is equipped with integrated exterior roller shutters so sun can be blocked out at will and it never touches the window glass.
5. Floor layout of apartments is generally long and narrow, which limits the amount of natural light that comes in. It makes for darker apartments, but in the middle of a Mediterranean summer, this is a feature, not a bug.

Not every building is created equal, so some homes are much better protected than others, but the cumulative effect is that most Spanish citizens are able to ride out high summer temps without resorting to mechanized cooling because, provided they’re not members of more vulnerable groups, even if it’s 38ºC/100ºF outside, it could only be 27ºC/80ºF inside. Not fun, but safe, especially if you got a cold drink in hand.

Americans and East Asians often shake their heads at how low residential air conditioning penetration is in Europe. I believe in Spain it’s only around 40%. Even among those who have AC at home, I joke that it’s the national pastime to resist turning on the AC because you don’t want to pay the increased power bill. The thing I think people miss is that the Spanish can afford to be this stubborn and frugal because even in peak summer, most of them are still pretty safe without the AC. While there are certainly many more excess deaths during heatwaves and there’s room for improvement, imagine how well a city like Phoenix would survive with only 40% of homes with AC.

Evaporative Cooling is Viable

While by no means broadly popular, Madrid’s bone-dry climate makes evap cooling very practical and effective. You see basic unit for sale in department stores, there’s an active secondhand market and you see small and large businesses use more commercial-sized portable units for cost-effective cooling. Merca Madrid, the biggest wholesale fish market in the country, converted completely to industrial-level evaporative cooling and the management says since then, they get some complaints it’s too cold during the summer, which they consider a mark of how successful the conversion has been. Regulars here know I swear by my portable evap coolers at home.

Green Spaces are Available

Madrid does not have the most hospitable climate or soil for vegetation, but the city has a very respectable amount of trees and green spaces everywhere except in the heart of downtown.

Public Water Sources are a Thing

While not universal, it’s fairly common in Madrid parks and playgrounds to see a free water tap the public can use to get drinking water or refresh themselves. Children make liberal use of them in the summer to fill squirt guns and water balloons.

The city can certainly do a lot more, but as places go, Madrid is not badly equipped to face rising temperatures.

My extreme heat intolerance is slowly getting worse. I used to say that I could not bear any temperatures over 10 C (50 F). Now I would say that 0 C (32 F) is the max temp ideal for me. Truly ideal would probably be nothing above -5 C (24 F).

Now imagine how screwed I am given that I am a San Francisco, USA native and for now live here. Next year I will leave the USA for good and move to Europe to study and live. But this year is going to be tough weatherwise.

I lived a few years in central Wisconsin for a few years during the pandemic, and I found that overall the weather in winter was better, but it was too hot and lacked the snow I wanted. I love frostbite temperatures like the -40 C I had in Québec 2 decades ago. I love blizzards that places like Hokkaidō and upstate New York get, like 1 m of snow in an hour. Love it.

But it seems like my body is suffering more and more. My heart rate spikes in heat now, and it feels like I lost 50 IQ points when it gets above 20 C (68 F). I swear profusely and can barely understand what others are saying if they are talking to me. It feels like I am swimming in a soup of nasty sweat, stewing in my own juices, cooking myself alive. It is like being drunk without having drunken anything. If the temperatures dropped to 0 C, it feels like I got my brain working back again.

Today was 20 C, and tomorrow will be 25 C. I dread this. Yesterday was a fun day at the zoo if not for the fact that it was bloody scorching hot. The sunshine was burning hot, and although everyone calls me a baby and such, I felt my heart rate spike to 140+ from the sunshine. I absolutely hate people who tell me to enjoy the sunshine and hot weather, which is basically almost every single person I know. I HATE people in this city.

Should I wear ice packs in public to make my body less overheated? For example, an ice eyemask on my forehead and ice packs round my neck and in my inner jacket pockets so my torso can cool down?

Now is the time to prepare and notify friends and family that may be in the areas. Look at the National Weather Service resources below to stay up-to-date on the forecast.

NOAA/NWS/WPC Probabilistic HeatRisk

NWS HeatRisk

I live in a southeast facing apartment and the rooms get plenty of direct sun in the summer.

I have dark wood blinds and wonder if painting one side white would make a big difference in heat inside the rooms during the summer?

There is significant cooling in the room when the sun is out and the blinds closed (vs open). I also have AC if needed. But I've noticed the blinds are warm to the touch themselves.

There's a notable number of new visitors to this subreddit all asking variations of the same question:

"Why do I feel so sick after being out when it was hot?"

The answer has been out there for years, but the "hot is good" culture doesn't wish to accept it: Too much heat harms us, that harm can be long-term, and it takes less heat to do it than we like to believe.

I don't know how, but as a people, we need to let go of the notion that "summer is good, summer is hot and sunny, therefore hot and sunny is always good because it's like summer, which is good."

With temperatures going crazy lately, I've started getting tiny itchy bumps and redness after being outside for even a short time. 🥵

At first, I thought it was just sweat, but it's becoming really uncomfortable.

Has anyone else been dealing with heat rash this summer?

What actually worked for you—cool showers, loose clothes, powders, or something else?

Would love to hear your experiences and tips!

About 10 days ago, i played golf and was outside for about 5 hours during peak heat. The temperature was about 94F with a humidity of 35-40%. I was aware of the concerns as Ive had heat exhaustion before, and I hydrated days before with water and electrolytes and stayed well hydrated during the event. About halfway through the event, i was experiencing chills and mild muscle cramping but I powered through and finished. I felt tired, fatigued, chilled, slightly dizzy, and had no apetite, but I was coherent and never felt close to fainting. That night, i struggled to sleep and felt my body radiating heat even 10 hours after the event.

Over the next 2 days, i declined consistently. My fatigue was getting worse and worse and I began to struggle with a lot of brain fog- was having difficulty concentrating at work and remembering simple things like peoples last names. By the middle of the 2nd night of not being able to sleep and feeling like I was becoming more and more mentally agitated, I took myself to the ER. They took labs and urine sample and said my electrolytes were in normal range and that one of my liver values was slightly high but not concerning and they sent me home.

Over the last week, I have been taking it fairly easy, hanging out in AC, trying to sip electrolytes and water throughout the day, but I still feel so fatigued and brain fogged about 10 days after the heat exposure. The last few nights I have slept way more than usual, and I wake up feel weak and groggy and its difficult to get out of bed. During the day I get out of breath rather easily from things like carrying a laundry basket up 2 flights of stairs. I also struggle to regulate temperature, stepping outside for a minute and then back into the AC makes me shiver. I'm having a lot more anxiety than I ever have.

Have i caused significant damage to my nervous system or something? How come I am struggle so much to bounce back to normal? What should I do to recover?

Around a week into the lovely European heat wave.

It's currently 33ºC/91ºF but was 35/95 earlier. RH 21%. "Only" 11ºC/19.8ºF above seasonal average.

The room I'm in, with blinds drawn and western exposure, is around 27ºC/80ºF.

My crappiest evaporative cooler is by my desk and pushing out 24.5ºC/76ºF air, which isn't stellar, but good enough for my personal cooling.

One of the jumbo coolers is keeping the wife and second born comfortable with a stream of 23.3ºC/74ºF air.

These numbers may not sound impressive, but a stream of moving air, they keep things very comfortable.

Continuous spray fine mist bottles (kind used by hairdressers) are my new best friend for cooling in the field. I'll try to take pictures and post separately about that, but it's been low key revolutionary for surviving being outside for extended periods of time.