Brace yourself for hotter weather

Hundreds of people with placards take part in a demonstration calling for climate change justice for Africa on November 14, 2015 in Nairobi. The high temperatures much of the world has been experiencing are thought to be largely a result of global warming. PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The website forecasts that the temperature will go up one degree on Monday and there will be no reprieve from the oppressive heat for the rest of the week.
  • The message advises people to drink water and stay out of the sun during the hottest times of the day, between 12pm to 3pm.

No, you are not imagining it. The past few days have really been hotter than usual and temperatures are only going to go higher, according to weather reports.

The coming days will probably be just as hot as it was Sunday, if not hotter.

On Sunday, Nairobi recorded a blistering 30 degrees Celsius, according to Accuweather.com, a website that monitors weather patterns around the world.

The website forecasts that the temperature will go up one degree on Monday and there will be no reprieve from the oppressive heat for the rest of the week.

A BBC forecast shows temperatures for the rest of the week will mostly be in the 20s, occasionally hitting the 30s, with little chance of rain. Nights will register lows of between 16 and 21 degrees Celsius.

Although a message warning citizens of the existence of an “Equinox phenomenon”, responsible for the abnormally high temperatures, has been circulated widely on social media, it is yet to be verified. But it does not seem to veer too far from the truth.

The message advises people to drink water and stay out of the sun during the hottest times of the day, between 12pm to 3pm.

However, its assertion that temperatures may go as high as 40 degrees is not supported by any of the weather forecasts.

Scientists have predicted that 2016 will be the hottest year on record, shattering the record set by 2015.

British newspaper The Guardian reported in February that the month had “smashed a century of global temperature records by a stunning margin”.

The story was based on reports by the American space agency Nasa, which stated that “the average global surface temperature in February was 1.35C warmer than the average temperature for the month between 1951-1980, a far bigger margin than ever before.”

Before February, January had posted the highest temperatures in a century. It seems March has duly followed suit.

The high temperatures are thought to be largely a result of global warming.

The current heatwave comes hot on the heels of the Cop21 Conference on Climate Change in Paris last December where over 195 nations pledged to cap the rise of surface temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius.