The first item of news on the morning TV show this morning was about the weather. Temperatures in the Kanto area (around Tokyo) reached 40 degrees Centigrade (that’s about 104 Farenheit) yesterday, and were predicted to be similar today. Yesterday saw the seventh highest temperature recorded in Japan since records began.
It is, indeed, a bit warm. Normally I can manage without air conditioning, but not at the moment; it’s a bad sign when the air conditioning is set to 28, and still has to work constantly. I am managing with it turned off part of the time, but Yuriko needs it on when she’s around. We’ve invested in some shades to go outside the windows, which should cool things down a bit, but lots of other people seem to have had the same idea, so we haven’t actually received them yet.
This is not good timing. The earthquake in Niigata a month ago knocked out the Kasiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station, the largest in the world, and one of the ones supplying Tokyo. Thus, Tokyo Electric has significantly less supply than normal, and is facing significantly higher demand. They’ve been running adverts on television asking people to use less electricity. Yes, they are paying good money for adverts saying “Please buy less of our product”.
The forecast is for the heatwave to break over the weekend, which would be nice.
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