With just a few days to go before I leave, I decided to check out the weather. The forecast for here in the Des Moines area for the coming week is: daytime highs in the mid- to upper-80s with nightime lows in the mid- to upper-60s...Fahrenheit, of course...with partly couldy to mostly sunny skies. Right now (early morning) the temperature is 73, the heat index is 73 and the wind chill is 73; the relative humidity is about 64%; and the UV index for today is 8 (very high).
In Cairo, by contrast, the high for today (it's mid-afternoon there now) is 106 with a heat index of 113 and a wind chill of 106. I'm sorry, but talking about a "wind chill" in the triple digits just seems so very wrong... The relative humidity is 37% and the UV index is 11 (extreme). Nothing but clear and sunny skies as far as the forecast can see.
This is all actuallly much better than it was a month or so ago. When Shaimaa and Sherif (two of the students who will be in my classes in Cairo) were here, Shaimaa said the temp in Cairo was around 50 (Celsius, obviously...about 122 Fahrenheit). She said it would be cooler by the time I got there. Looks like she was right!
Although, thinking of 106 degrees as a "cooling trend" will take some getting used to...
