This weekend Macedonia enters a yellow phase - not because of politics, but because of the heat. The entire country is under a yellow warning for high maximum temperatures, which in parts of the country will climb to 39 degrees. In Skopje, around 38 is expected.

According to the meteorologists' forecast, Friday and the weekend will bring sunny, hot weather with light local cloud cover. Morning temperatures will drop to between 15 and 23 degrees, while daily maximums will reach 33 to 39. In the afternoon, in some basins, short spells of instability are possible - clouds building up with brief heavy rain, thunder and stronger wind. Which means the heat and the storms can arrive on the same day.

The yellow phase is not a call to panic, but it isn't decoration either. It's an official signal that temperatures are high enough to harm the very people least able to protect themselves - the elderly, small children, the chronically ill, those working outdoors in open sun.

And this is where the same silence repeats every summer. We know the heat is coming, we know who it hits hardest - but how many employers actually adjust working hours when the thermometer reads 38? How many kindergartens and care homes have a real plan for extreme days, rather than just an air conditioner running until the grid gives out?

Announcing a hot weekend is the easy part. The harder part is what always gets left to chance: does anyone really protect the ones for whom the heat is most dangerous - or are we all just waiting for summer to pass on its own?