How Many Types of Heat?

Before I moved to the Middle East I thought there was only one kind of heat. If it’s hot, it’s hot, right? Wrong. Turns out that there’s an oppressive, humid, ‘wet’ heat (as experienced in Miami…Dubai) and there’s an oppressive, crisp, ‘dry’ heat as experienced in….Vegas, the African plains and….Doha. And they feel very, very different. The dry heat wins hands down every time for me. Don’t get me wrong, it still makes me panic a little bit if I don’t know EXACTLY where I’m walking (mental calculations: how many seconds will I be out in this for) but somehow it’ just a searing burning sensation, and not a heavy, drowning kind of feeling. A bit like opening an oven door and getting your face too close to it. The weirdest sensation? When the dry heat gets windy – we’re talking 48 degree heat wafting in your face. At one point it actually felt like the surface of my eyeballs was peeling off. Nice, eh?