Too hot to swim?

Our child’s school said it’s too hot to swim. Ummmmm…
If the water temperature and air temperature have a difference of somefarking degrees. What is this mularkey? The 100 million yen pool gets maybe 2 weeks use per year, now less , honestly wtf?

12 comments
  1. Swimming in hot water for extended periods is more dangerous than walking around in the hot air. The basic reason: sweating cools you down because the sweat evaporates from your skin. When you’re swimming, sweating does nothing to cool you down. Unless the water is significantly cooler than the surrounding air temperature, “too hot to swim” is definitely a thing. And since the nights have been warm recently, it’s possible that the water in the pool is pretty dang warm, even early in the morning.

  2. How old is your kid?
    My daughter is in first grade and the school said the same thing. But it makes sense because many of them can’t even swim so they’d be wading or walking in the water before learning to put their face in the water, and then eventually swimming. If they’re not really submerged in the water the heat will boil their head.

  3. Too cold and raining are also reasons for cancellation here.

    You’re lucky if you get to go in the pool once during summer.

  4. Well I don’t know the temperature of your school’s pool. But currently my pool is at 37C. Probably too hot for school’s standard and regulations.

  5. It sounds like bs, but this is 100% a thing. I once went swimming in a public pool at 9 at night in Las Vegas during the summer and the pool was like hot bathwater.

  6. the issue I see is an infrastructure/planning problem. The pools are fully exposed to the sun, they really need some type of covering. it doesn’t even have to be full coverage, just enough to block/diffuse 50% would be good.

  7. It’s too hot to be outside, even to swim. If the kids exercise before they enter the water (and I hope they do) or wait for their turn to swim, it’s enough to get sunburns and you sincerely never know who is already dizzy because of dehydration etc. You don’t want to discover that a kid was not in a state to swim when they are in the middle of the pool, because it would be ideal if all kids were brought to school by their parents in a car with AC or commuted by bus, but there are certainly a lot of them who are commuting by bicycle or even on foot.
    There are chances that the infirmary is already filled. If the school thinks they can’t take that risk when it’s *hotter for this period of the year than it has been for 100 years*, now, I don’t know… maybe they have a point?

  8. If children running around at 39C is not healthy for them, then swimming in water that is at least that temperature is even worse.

    The pool water needs to be cooler than the air around and below body temperature to be reasonably safe. Human body temperature is 36.4C, so swimming in 37C water is going to raise body temperatures in an environment that is already dangerous. Being wet only cools you down if the water evaporates off your skin, which also doesn’t happen as well in high humidity, which is also common in Japan.

    So…….. be careful not to get your kids hurt because your common sense dictates it should be fine.

  9. In my experience it’s super easy to get a serious skin burn swimming under the baking sun, because the water works like kind of magnifying glass in this case.

  10. I have a few acquaitances that teach at elementary schools. All of them said their schools cancelled swim lessons due to the heat of the water. The water temperature was 32.

    32 is consdiered too hot for swimming, although fine for a hot tub! Swimming in hot water can cause muscle fatique and spasms.

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