Wyn Drabble asks just how hot is hot when it comes to the weather. Photo / Ian Cooper
You're about to see some of my prime pedantry so if you can't stand pedantic people, pull out promptly.
Once in a Wellington carpark building, a man making polite conversation said to me, "Isn't it hot today." I smiled and nodded and fanned my forehead to give his claim some validity. But secretly I was thinking, "What is he talking about? This doesn't feel at all hot."
It made me curious enough to watch the TV weather that night and see what maximum the capital had hit. It was 19C. So, at the time of the comment, it might have been 17C. You can call me a meteorological pedant if you wish, but I call that mild. Not even warm and certainly not hot.
We seem to bandy "hot" around and the trouble is that it leaves no words for when it actually is hot. Or even hotter. "Scorcher" gets the same treatment.
The hottest shade maximum I have endured is 46C in Sydney a couple of decades ago. I would classify that as extremely hot and definitely a scorcher. It's certainly a world away from 19C.
I don't have an official scale and the boundaries are a bit blurred but to me 15C is moderate, 19 is mild, 25 is warm, 30 is very warm and, above that, hot and very hot.
My pedantry really shines when weather sites sum up the day and, even in winter, will say the "hottest" place in New Zealand was Kaitaia with 15C. On my scale that's moderate. What they perhaps could have said is "the highest temperature recorded in the country was ..."
I know some will say it means "for the time of year". But a temperature of 18C in July is still mild for the time of year. Not hot.
A related issue is school uniform rules. Many schools specify a date from which pupils should wear summer uniform. Trouble is, of course, the weather reality won't always match the uniform. If there's a cold snap in December, a young person might wear a winter uniform, but would risk getting a detention.
New Zealand's weather can be very fickle and we can be served up four seasons in a day (though I realise that song was written in and probably was about Melbourne).
A number of people also get hung up on daily maximums as if that were an important criterion in weather discussions. I have heard someone boast once that our temperature of 25C was two degrees "hotter" than Fiji's.
Bring the whole 24 hours into the picture and it's a very different story. Ours was 25–12, theirs 23–21. The overnight minimum makes a huge difference. If you're in Suva, on the wetter side of the island, it would feel even more uncomfortable than the temperature suggests.
I have a favourite weather rule of thumb from Suva. Joske's Thumb is a rocky volcanic protuberance down the coast from Suva (quite similar to God's Thumb in the movie Holes). Local lore has it that, "if you can see Joske's Thumb it's going to rain. If you can't see it it's already raining."
We can see that weather is important to us from the many common expressions based on it. Think of fair-weather friend, weather the storm and a bit under the weather.
We can be snowed under or even keep a weather eye on something (possibly the temperature).
I realise that this has been quite a hot topic – even a scorcher – but I hope I haven't made heavy weather of it. If you'd like to write in and add your view, I'd like to hear it.
Now, for tomorrow, I'd recommend one light layer of clothing because it's probably going to be hot.
• Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.