It’s “Hot Time, Summer in the City” in Montreal these days, but I’m not just talking about the weather.

Our often feverish outdoor temperatures reflect the fever in our streets in recent weeks, because both are sizzling. 

What are the signs of Montreal’s summer?

Sizzling weather. After a long, cold winter and soaking wet spring, someone clicked the switch from OFF to ON and we changed climates faster than flying to Miami.

I’m not complaining: I definitely prefer 33 above to 33 below. But with climate change, 30 degrees is the new 20.

When we’re not living in a “heat dome” — the latest weather buzzword — it still “feels” like it. Whatever the temperature, there are Environment Canada warnings that the “real feel” is 38 degrees. 

So we’re told to drink twice our weight in water, wear sunblock 227 and hide in a dark room with the curtains down.

Air conditioners are becoming as essential as heating here, with 60 per cent of Montrealers already owning one. Some people cool their whole house, some just have one cool “safe room,” while others find shelter in the nearest supermarket walk-in beer freezer. 

In sweltering Europe, this summer has been described as “hot as hell.”

But most people there disdain air conditioning, partly for ecological reasons but also from winter-hardened stoicism.

Few Europeans heat in winter. They just dress warmly, eat under........

© Montreal Gazette