Some heat relief at hand for Montreal
Physician says ‘social solidarity’ best way to protect one another in hot weather
Montreal might be catching a break — even if just for a day.
A heat warning issued by Environment Canada was set to be removed Tuesday evening as Wednesday’s temperatures were forecasted to drop below 33 C, the base temperature for what the agency considers to be extreme heat.
Warmer weather is set to move back into the city on Thursday, but Jean-Philippe Begin, meteorologist with Environment Canada, said that while the temperatures will approach the extreme-heat level, they won’t be as bad as they were on Monday and Tuesday.
A heat warning from Environment Canada had said the “warm and humid air mass covering southern Quebec ... will persist through Wednesday evening. The temperatures combined with the humidity will produce humidex values of 35 to 38 degrees Celsius. Moreover, minimum temperatures will remain above 20 degrees overnight (Tuesday).”
The warning noted that the excessive heat represents potential health risks for young children, pregnant women, older adults, people with chronic illnesses and people working or exercising outdoors.
David Kaiser, a physician with Santé Montréal, said the city’s public health agencies go into what they call “active watch” mode when Environment Canada issues a heat warning. Current weather conditions do not meet the city’s threshold for a heat wave, but the public health department is still issuing messages about prevention and reviewing health data daily to make sure they don’t see abnormal rates of hospital visits, deaths and other indicators.
“It’s a little stepped up from a regular summer day, but because we don’t expect, from a publichealth perspective, that there are going to be population-level impacts, we’re not in intervention phase,” Kaiser said.
An intervention phase involves first responders and health professionals knocking on people’s doors to check on them and moving people to air-conditioned facilities, among other measures.
The city of Montreal goes into the intervention phase when there are at least three consecutive days of 33 C or more during the day, and the temperature doesn’t go below 20 C at night, Kaiser said.
The most important thing Montrealers can do is check on vulnerable neighbours and members of their community, Kaiser said. Elderly people and people with chronic diseases are at a higher risk of suffering from the heat, becoming dehydrated and ending up in hospital and possibly dying.
“The way to protect those people on all of the hot days in the summer is really social solidarity. It’s making sure that those people have someone who checks on them, if they ’re not mobile, if they have difficulty getting around, that there’s somebody who can help them,” Kaiser said, adding that even offering cold towels or helping people spend some time in a cool place can make a difference.