When temperatures rise to 40 degrees Celsius and above in Japan, it will now be called “cruelly hot” or “kokusho-bi”.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said this new label would help them warn people about dangerously hot weather.
Last year was Japan’s hottest summer since the country started keeping records in 1898. Heatwave days are more common all over the world because of climate change.
To come up with the new term, JMA did a survey. They got responses from 478,000 people. They adopted the most popular entry, “cruelly hot”.
The new category joins terms already used by JMA for other warm and hot temperatures.
