The entire country is on orange alert. The mercury is heading for 40 degrees, and the advice is the same one we hear every summer - drink fluids, stay in at midday, watch out for children and the elderly. The problem is that the advice assumes you have somewhere to shelter.

According to the Hydrometeorological Service, minimum temperatures range from 12 to 20 degrees, with daily maximums reaching 33 to 40. A light to moderate northerly wind is blowing, occasionally strengthening to 40 kilometres per hour in the Vardar valley.

The previous day's measurements show how the heat is distributed across the country. At 11 a.m., the highest temperature was recorded in Gevgelija - 34.8 degrees. Skopje followed at the Zajčev Rid station with 33.7, Veles with 32.8, Demir Kapija and Kavadarci with 32.5 each. Štip recorded 32.1, Strumica 30.9 and Tetovo 30.2 degrees.

At the other end of the list are the mountain and tourist locations: Ohrid 25.9, Kruševo 24.3 and Popova Šapka with 19.8 degrees. The gap between Gevgelija and Popova Šapka is fifteen degrees - in the same country, at the same hour.

The weather alert covers the whole territory, and in the afternoon, mostly in the north, instability is expected with short heavy showers and thunderstorms.

And here is the part that usually does not make it into a forecast. „Avoid direct sun exposure during the hottest part of the day” is advice written for someone who works in an air-conditioned office. For a builder on scaffolding, for a van driver with no air conditioning, for a man who has been sitting at a market stall since six in the morning - that is not advice, it is a description of something unavailable to him. A heatwave does not hit everyone equally, and that is the part we leave unsaid every summer.